


Greetings from Texas, the Lone Star State

by Micheoff



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: (sort of), Background Relationships, Drunken Confessions, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Healing, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 58,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3520895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Micheoff/pseuds/Micheoff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael has only lived at his new apartment for a few days before he gets the first postcard. He dismisses it at first, but when the postcards keep coming he can't help but start to get attached to the sender. Somehow, along the way, he ends up falling in love with someone he's never even met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I do birthday fics now, so happy birthday to Ty! Shout out to [this post](http://memewhore.tumblr.com/post/108673928272) for putting this idea in my head and shout out to Geoff's journals and a few of his Tweets which I have used in some way for most of his postcards. Another shout out to the background relationships in this fic which are: Gavin/Jack, Lindsay/Meg, and Ray/Ryan. 
> 
> Also, just a heads up that I am notorious for taking long breaks for personal reasons and that this is a WIP, so be warned that chapters can take a while to get around to (chapter three was posted six months after chapter two, is all I'm saying). 
> 
> Leaving comments and kudos makes my day too, so thank you to all of those who do so! ♥ you!!!

_“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers, and cities;_

_but to know someone_ _who thinks and feels with us, and though distant,_

 _is close to us in spirit — this makes_ _the earth for us an inhabited garden.”_

                         — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre_

•••

The first letter comes after Michael’s had a terrible breakup (which he sometimes refers to as _The Worst Thing To Ever Happen Since The Matrix Revolutions_ ™). Well… letter is a slight exaggeration. It’s just a postcard from Texas, but the scrawl on the card overflows the assigned area on the back and carries over to the front, so he thinks letter is a good word for it.

He’s hardly moved off of his couch for almost two weeks straight unless he’s absolutely had to, but it’s his first breakup from a long-term relationship (his only relationship, actually) and he’s honestly surprised he can even lift his head after crying so much the past couple of days. He deserves a little credit for still remaining a functioning human being when it feels like his heart has been ripped from his chest and thrown into the mud a couple of times, mired and damaged to the point of being irreparable, before being handed back to him with a flimsy — almost offensive in its curtness — post-it note reading a hollow, _“Whoops-a-daisies.”_

Is he being overly dramatic and taking this dragged-through-the-mud simile a little too far? Sure, but he maintains that anyone else in his situation wouldn’t be much better off. Hell, a lesser man would probably have bought out a whole store full of bourbon and ice cream by now. But not him, because he’s only bought about a single freezer’s worth of ice cream and who could really say how much alcohol he’s bought? It’s, well, it’s... who knows, really? Who keeps track of alcohol intake? Not him, so it’s irrelevant.

The thing about high school sweethearts is that that’s exactly what they are — from high school. They’re not meant to last long, but somehow Michael and his now ex-girlfriend lasted for six years. From eleventh grade to Michael’s first roller coaster ride. From his first broken wrist he got in twelfth grade and made her sign the cast of first before anyone else to his first taste of New York pizza. From his parent’s divorce and the broken pieces it left to his first kiss. From his first fumbling and embarrassing heavy petting session to his breakdown after being overwhelmed with school work. From his first real job to his first time being fired.

From everything to something else and back again. Repeating things with her until they became his second time around instead of his first.

Sometimes they both shared firsts, like when they both took their first major trip out of state from New Jersey to Maine; they slept in his car and had to pee in the dirty bathrooms of gas stations at 3 a.m. when the lights on the highways would flicker like they were about to go out at any second and leave them to giggle in the dark. Doing things together always felt better than when they were only Michael’s first times, because there was a steady and unwavering solidarity there.

But now? Now all Michael is doing anymore is wavering, limbs unsure of how to stabilize himself enough to keep his balance and his eyes too wet to see where he would fall in the first place.

This is the first major heartbreak for the both of them, and, sure, they’re both going through it at the same time, but they’re not doing it _together_ , and that is the worst thing about this to him. For so long he couldn’t imagine doing something without her, but there he is: alone and heartbroken and crying into his pillow every night thinking about the way she would snore like mad during the night but always deny it in the morning.

She’s been a lot of his firsts and she’s gotten him through so many things, opened up so many new doors for him and given the encouraging push in the right direction. Michael wouldn’t change a thing, except maybe he would change the outcome of their relationship. He wouldn’t take any of it back, just put a Band-Aid over it and ignore all of their problems.

Heartbreak is a bitch, but he’s lucky that he’s had the opportunity to love and be in love with someone as lovely as her.

It hurts, of course it does, but he’s moved out of the apartment — the one he shared with her for two years and moved out of six days after the break up, when he found a nice apartment closer to his work and far enough away from her that he wouldn’t accidentally show up there when he was drunk, thinking that there was still a space on the right side of her bed for him and one of his toothbrushes by hers at the sink — and he’s getting better.

The place he’s at now is decent, clean, and surprisingly cozy despite the smell of cats that hangs heavy in the air. He can only assume the pungent scent is coming from across the hall, which would probably explain the reason he hasn’t met that neighbor yet, because he read somewhere that cat owners tend to be more introverted than everyone else (just his luck that he’d end up with a weird cat person as his neighbor. He doesn’t even _like_ cats, for Christ’s sake, and he’s pretty sure cats aren’t even allowed in the apartment complex he’s at).

He already met two of his neighbors in the stairwell while he was carrying up a small box full of his video games, practically running into them despite the fact that all three of them were going the same way. One of them — around his height with thick rimmed glasses and a purple jacket that slouched off one of his shoulders — had made a joke about needing new glasses, shook Michael’s hand as he welcomed him to the building, and introduced himself as Ray. The other one — tall, broad everywhere from his shoulders to his chest, and smartly dressed with windswept light brown hair, reminding Michael of someone who’d be a teacher or some kind of Psych major — had just said the _‘sorry’_ s for the both of them and followed after Ray like a lost puppy when he started to leave. 

Michael didn’t find out the other guy’s name until he saw Ray again a day later in that same stairwell, carrying up his groceries and complaining about how his boyfriend, Ryan, was out visiting a friend and couldn’t help him. It didn’t take long for Michael to connect the name to the dorky, yet somehow threatening in his silence, looking guy who was with Ray before.

Another one of his neighbors he met while he was checking the mail, when they came over and started talking to him as they opened their mailbox up too. He was a lanky guy with a thick accent and a face that irrationally made Michael want to punch him, but he held off through sheer force of will and a stern mental reminder that punching people who looked punchy wasn’t a socially acceptable practice.

He seemed nice enough when they met and told Michael his name was Gavin while he sorted through the junk mail, tossing the ones that didn’t pass his inspection into the nearest trash can. Michael ended up getting Gavin to give him the lowdown on all of the other tenants by bribing him with promises to fix the runny tap in his bathroom only minutes after they started talking.

Ray and Ryan had been living there for three years, but had no plans to move out anytime soon, and were the ones living in the room to the left of Michael. The “weird cat person” was actually two people, Meg and Lindsay, who had two cats and a small dog that once got loose and peed all over Gavin’s door (and, no, none of the animals were permitted, but superintendent Hullum overlooks almost everything when it came to the girls — something that had Gavin really hard pressed or just jealous, Michael guessed, based off of the way he groaned when Michael asked about it). Margaret, a headstrong old lady who lived a door down from Gavin and right next to Michael, was always willing to bake sweets for anyone who asked and, as Gavin had put it, was basically the grandma to all of them on the second floor (though Gavin clarified that she only lets him call her that, along with nan, abuela, and abuelita, because Gavin is “the favorite” out of everyone).

A guy Gavin didn’t know the name of was living all the way down at the end of their hallway and Gavin was pretty sure he had died, but he was too worried about offending them by knocking on their door and asking if they were okay. There were two empty rooms (one across from the guy at the end of the hallway and the other across from Margaret) that Gavin told him once belonged to a girl who was living off campus until she could afford to dorm at her college and a guy who ended up trying to sell Gavin and Ray weed once.

And then there was Jack, who lived across from Gavin and — based off of the blush on Gavin’s cheeks the longer he talked about him (he went on about Jack for a really long time, seriously) and the way Gavin wouldn’t stop smiling — was someone who Gavin had a major crush on. Michael learned more about Jack and his seasonal rotation between cargo shorts and regular jeans during those twenty minutes than he did anyone else, but he let it slide because he wasn’t about to go picking on his new floormate. Plus he surmised that he’d have an ample amount of time to tease the kid while living there.

All in all, Michael was pleased with the people he shared a floor with. By his fourth day at the apartment he had met all of the tenants except for the girls across the hall and the guy who was actually not at all dead, much to Gavin’s relief when he’d told him about the horrifying experience in which he found out about the guy’s state of sentience (Michael had passed by the man’s door and knocked curiously to see if he’d get a reply. He did. Let’s just say the man didn’t sound all that excited to hear someone knocking at his door and Michael booked it back into his apartment like he was running from a fastly catching fire).

He’d grown close to Gavin by the end of his first week and even went so far as to tell him about the breakup. It was nice to finally be able to whine about it to someone other than himself and Gavin nodded at all of the appropriate places, though Michael was pretty sure he wasn’t actually listening. It didn’t matter much to him either way, because he still rambled on and on into the night until Gavin had to go back to his apartment to water his plant and go to bed. It felt good to let it all out, even if no one was listening to _every_ single thing he said. He just needed someone to _sometimes_ listen and Michael liked Gavin anyway, so he didn’t mind as much as he would have had it been anyone else.

So he’s settled into his new place nicely, bonding with Gavin, planning out The Walking Dead pizza nights on Saturdays with Ray and Ryan (who he is still a little bit intimidated by in all honesty), and even asking Margaret to teach him how to bake cookies and brownies the right way (because there is, in fact, a wrong way to bake prepackaged mix for cookies and brownies. Listen, he didn’t know you had to actually take them out of the plastic, because many microwavable meals have taught him that sometimes the packaging is supposed to stay on). He didn’t think he’d fit in so well with everyone, but he’s never felt more comfortable living somewhere and it’s more refreshing than anything else in his life has been for years.

Then, among him trying to get over his ex-girlfriend and befriending his floormates, the first postcard arrives.

•••

There are used tissues strewn about all over the floor and empty cans of Red Bull piled high on the coffee table when he wakes up from the nap he had taken on the couch. He doesn’t care enough to pick any of the trash up, however, and just rolls around on the couch until his feet hit the floor and he can push himself over to the kitchen sink for some water, mouth dry and hot all at once.  
  
He turns the tap on and fills up the only cup he has — he only has one of everything now, since the breakup; one plate, one bowl, one fork, one spoon, one knife, and one sad little cup that has its porcelain chipped at the lip from where he dropped it while moving into this very same apartment complex. He figures the cup with the literal chip in it must be some all encompassing metaphor for his life now, so he decides to keep it (also, he’s not made of money, so he’s not going to spend what he has on things like new cups or cutlery). He gulps the water down, thankful that it’s not cold enough to make him more thirsty, and sets the now empty cup down on the counter to stretch his arms above his head.

There’s a vaguely painful twinge running along his shoulders that he can only assume came from the uncomfortable way he had been lying during his sleep and his head feels like a dead weight, heavy and discombobulated, sinuses congested from crying and being a general mopey slob.

He should clean the main room up or maybe even clean himself up, but when he thinks about the effort that would take he finds himself recoiling mentally and all but hissing at the prospect of it, because he’s tired and sore and just wants to wallow and feel sorry for himself into the next year.

Instead of actively trying to better his environment, he decides to pick a sweatshirt off of the floor and pull it over his head, opting to ignore all of his messy problems rather than face them. He doesn’t even bother attempting to tame his hair before he opens the door and hurries down to the first floor to get his mail and then back up to his apartment.

He’s lucky that he doesn’t run into anyone on the way there or back, because he really doesn’t feel up to explaining why his eyes are red and puffy for the third day in a row. He’s grateful that he’s got people who genuinely seem like they care about him, but he can only handle so much attention before it gets too much and the questions he gets about his feelings are always harder to answer than the ones about his favorite TV shows, it seems.

With the door closed behind him, he walks into the kitchen and starts shuffling through the mail in his hands. Leaning against the fridge, careful not to disturb his aching shoulders too much, he looks at the mix of paraphernalia and yawns into his shoulder sluggishly, mouth cracking open wide and reminding him that he still hasn’t brushed his teeth.

_Bill._

_Magazine I didn’t sign up for._

_Junk._

_Junk._

_Coupons? People send coupons through the mail now?_

_Another bill._

_No, thanks, I don’t want a new credit card._

_More junk._

_A &P is having a sale? Great, too bad I don’t have money. Or the time. Or give even the slightest fuck about buying a bunch of overpriced food. I’m good, thanks._

And, then, _random postcard from Texas_.

 

He pauses, picking the postcard out of the pile and setting the rest of the mail onto the counter, his curiosity peaked.

There’s the simple art of a person in a tacky shirt that’s riding on a horse in the foreground of the card and in the background there’s an artistic rendering of the state of Texas, complete with names of important tourist places and the Gulf of Mexico in the bottom right-hand corner. It’s cheesy, something Michael reckons costed less than a dollar to buy and was probably made in the 90s, but surprisingly homey, something that you’d send to someone who feels homesick.

The cheesiness of the postcard is defaced, however, by the unintelligible scrawl covering most, if not all, of the right side. He can’t make any of the the words out, because the handwriting is absolutely atrocious, but he still tries mulishly for a few seconds to read it. He can’t, despite his best efforts, and he decides to stop trying lest he gets a headache.

He flips the card over and hopes the other side might be more helpful, but even the line assigned for writing your name is covered by the handwriting of a kindergartner. Actually, it’s almost like whoever sent the postcard wasn’t even writing in English or as if they were just scribbling all over the card and trying to color in imaginary lines. He’s not even sure how the card got to him, because the address that’s written could have very easily been mistaken for something else. It might not even be meant for him, but, yet, there it is in his hands.

He stares at it for a moment, flipping from the front to the back on repeat.

He doesn’t know anyone from Texas; there’s no distant Jones step-sibling or creepy cousin twice removed on his mom’s side from there, either. He remembers being told in his high school finance class about a scam where someone would pretend to be a broke relative whose car had broken down while road tripping and ask to be wired some money to call a cab, but he’s pretty sure that was only a phone call thing, and he’s also pretty sure it was just a way to get kids not to give their credit card number out over the phone.

Logically, there’s absolutely no reason for him to keep the card and not just throw it away. He can’t read it, he doesn’t know anyone from the place — Austin, Texas, to be specific — the card comes from, and he’s pretty sure that anyone who would want to talk to him would just text or call, which is what most of his family members do, as all of the Joneses above the age of twenty-five seem to have no idea that texting exists.

But… but. He looks at the card and there’s something there. Just a small, almost fleeting moment, in which he considers that the card really is meant for him. And the prospect of that, of someone far away who wants to connect with him, has him cradling the card a little more gently in his hands.

It’s enough of a reason not to dump it in the trash and he finds himself pushing off of the fridge and turning to face it. He holds the card over the middle of the fridge, staring at the way the yellow of the card contrasts with the baby blue of the fridge — the one that came with his apartment and looks like it belongs in the 70s. Before Michael is even aware of what he’s doing, he places a magnet on top of the postcard, keeping it in place instead of just dropping it into the trash can a few feet away.

He steps back with his arms akimbo at his hips and considers the card again. It looks out of place among everything else in his apartment, but he thinks he likes it.

He heads back into the living room and starts cleaning up, feeling the oddest urge to do something with his hands after putting the postcard up.

•••

The second postcard comes three days later and for some baseless reason Michael knew it’d show up eventually. He isn’t the one to get it, too busy wallowing in self pity after realizing that today is the day of his anniversary with his ex, but apparently his neighbors are very close-knit and prepared to never leave him alone, because someone starts knocking on his door at entirely too early in the morning — which is saying something, because he is the biggest morning person he knows. He’s only just finished pouring milk into his bowl of cereal when he actually hears the knocking and he has to quickly put the milk back in the fridge before he can answer the door.

The rapping against the wood is light and quick and he can hear a feminine voice call seconds later, “Michael? I got your mail for you. Free of charge!”

He trips over one of the shoes he’d left in the middle of the floor, but somehow makes it to the door without breaking anything. When he pulls the door open there’s a short redheaded girl with a grey sports bra on and two separate handfuls of mail. She pushes one towards him and he takes it after a second of disorientated staring, not quite registering what was going on.

“Sorry, um. Who are you?” he asks, looking around the hall and then back to the girl.

“Oh, shit, sorry. I keep forgetting you haven’t met me yet. I’m Meg, I live across the hall with Linds… ay. Lindsay. I, uh, got your mail for you—” she nods towards the mail in his hands. “Gavin mentioned that you were being a hermit and I wanted to help you out.”

When Michael doesn’t say anything she clears her throat. “I didn’t — I didn’t look through it or anything, if you’re wondering. I just saw your mailbox full and figured, _what the hell_ , you know?”

Michael’s brain starts working again and he licks his lips, nodding. “Right. Right, yeah, okay. Thanks for that. I didn’t know you and Gavin talked.”

“Oh, yeah! We all do on this floor. We’re kind of like a big family here. I know everyone’s birthdays and everything. Well, not yours. _Yet_.”

He laughs at that, eyes shining. It startles him how quickly his mood is starting to change, almost as if he’s suddenly lighter just by talking to someone. “The twenty-fourth of July.”

“I’ll mark it down on my calendar,” she says around a barely contained smile.

The conversation lulls and Michael rubs at his neck, trying to think of something else to say, though Meg doesn’t look too concerned about filling in the silence.

“Um. So... are you two sisters?” he asks, nodding his head over to their door. “Must be nice to live with family.”

Which isn’t true, because he’d absolutely hate to live with his siblings again, but he doesn’t know what else to say and it’s not like she’ll know he doesn’t agree with the sentiment.

Meg laughs suddenly and makes a dismissing motion with her hand, Michael’s not quite sure what’s so funny and shifts awkwardly.

“No, no, no. We’re engaged, but we get that a lot. I guess the first thing people think when they see two girls isn’t always ‘wow, definitely a couple,’ but that’s what we are.”

“Oh! Oh,” Michael repeats intelligently. “Wow, okay, lesbians, cool,” he blurts out before he even realizes that that’s probably not something you say to finding out the people you thought were family were actually a soon-to-be-married couple.

Despite Michael’s idiocy, Meg remains smiling politely. “No, actually. I’m bi and Lindsay’s an asexual lesbian. So, like, kind of? But not really.”

“So… not lesbians? Okay, yeah. Sorry, I don’t meet a lot of not straight people anywhere other than chat rooms on the internet. I guess I’m just not quite sure what to say.” Michael shrugs and offers her an apologetic smile, as if to say, _I’m not always this much of a moron, but I’m nervous about meeting new people and don’t really know how mouth words work, sorry_.

“Oh, dude, are you bi or something?” She pats at his shoulder with her free hand momentarily before shifting her weight, smile widening.

“Yeah, yeah. Bisexual? I think? I’m not really sure.”

“Oh, awesome! Good to see I’m not the only one in this apartment.” She elbows him playfully, then looks behind herself and towards the door across from his. “Uh, wow. Now that we’ve got those incredibly personal questions out of the way—” Michael laughs cordially “—I’ve got to get inside before Linds thinks I’ve eloped with someone from the gym. It was nice meeting you, though! Don’t get mad at Gavin for telling me about you, please. I was just nosy,” she admits, backing away from Michael and waving.

“I won’t,” he agrees, but Meg’s already inside her apartment with the door closed by the time he gets it out. Sighing, he looks down at the mail in his hands, eyes honing in on the big postcard underneath the stack of bills and junk. “Fucking Gavin,” he mumbles with a shake of his head.

When he’s back in his living room, resting his back against the couch while his cereal slowly gets soggy in the bowl on the table, he looks over the new postcard. This one is void of any words on the scenic picture, which has now changed to the image of cowboys on horses. He scoops some Frosted Flakes into his mouth and chews thoughtfully, turning the card over in his hand and reading the now legible (just barely, he’d like to point out) words on the back.

> _I just woke up from one of the worst hangovers in my life and realized I made the mistake of writing to you — whoever you are. Please excuse anything I said to you in my note. I got really drunk yesterday night and I’m not even sure I actually mailed it to you, but just in case I’m asking you to pretend it never happened. Wow, there’s really not a lot of room on these things, huh? Anyway, sorry. G._

There’s no name written on it, but the subscript at the top says the postcard came from Round Rock, Texas, which is different from the one that was sent before. He hums pensively, taking another bite of his cereal. He puts the postcard down on the table and doesn’t touch it again until later in the day, when he carries it over to the fridge and puts it up with the other one.

He makes a mental note to go out and buy more magnets later, just in case he gets more. He doesn’t know why exactly, but he anticipates it. He even finds himself feeling giddy over the prospect of receiving another postcard, which he isn’t entirely sure he understands, because they’re only postcards from someone he doesn’t even know. He probably just misses talking to people who can’t tell he’s having a rough time and don’t have to see his perpetually puffy eyes from crying so much, he supposes. He dismisses it and decides not to think about it too hard.

He still checks the mail twice the next day, but there’s nothing there.

•••

He doesn’t get another postcard until five days later, and by then he’d all but forgotten about them. He hadn’t taken the ones he’d already got off of the fridge, but he never really thought about them when he’d see them. They were all but nonexistent to him, though he did end up getting the extra magnets.

He doesn’t bother waiting to get back to his room before he reads it, just rests against the mailboxes lining the wall and holds the rest of his mail against his hip.

This one comes from a place in Texas called Rusk, and it’s adjourned with a picture of tumbleweeds and a red barn. He doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean or why barns are so significant to the town of Rusk, but he guesses that’s just a Texas thing, like how the two other postcards had horses on them. He flips it over and starts reading the back.

> _So I’m going on a trip. I think that’s why I was looking over postcards when I sent that first one. I was really drunk, but I remember thinking that I should just start travelling, maybe visit some friends along the way and stuff, so I’m gonna do that. This is the only address I know, so I hope you don’t mind me sending them. Christ, if that doesn’t sound ridiculously pathetic. You can just throw these away if you want. I wouldn’t hold it against you. Geoff._

Geoff.

The sender’s name is Geoff.

Michael tests the name out on his tongue, curious to how it would sound coming from him, and it feels right for some reason — like he’s known Geoff for years. Geoff is a pretty uncommon name, too, though he supposes that wouldn’t be the case if the sender’s name was Jeff instead. He brushes his thumb over the ink of Geoff’s chicken scratch and smiles.

He heads back upstairs and doesn’t even bother looking through the rest of the mail, just tosses the bills and junk onto the coffee table in the main room and heads straight to the kitchen. Grabbing a magnet out of the small bowl full of them on the top of the fridge, he places the new postcard above the other two.

He goes to search through the kitchen drawers and then comes back to the fridge, now equipped with a black Sharpie. He writes the date on the top right corner of the new postcard and then caps the Sharpie, taking a step back to appreciate the three postcards pinned to the fridge by magnets.

He thinks he’s going to look forward to more postcards from Texas.


	2. Chapter 2

The next postcard comes a day later from a place called Laneville, which is also in Texas just like the rest of the cards.

This time, the picture on the front of the card is an uninspired outline of the state of Texas, complete with the stereotypical cowboy adorning a rearing horse, but this one in particular has a huge belt buckle resting on the hip of the cowboy. The card is small, not leaving much room for anything more than a sentence or two, but Geoff seemingly doesn’t care and ends up writing on both sides in a sparkly red pen that makes Michael snort, wondering if Geoff went out and bought a pack of sparkling pens or if he just asked to borrow a pen and was give one that glittered.

He reads the postcard as he’s sitting on the floor of his bedroom, his back pressed to the foot of his bed while he holds the postcard carefully between both of his hands.

The light filters in from behind the curtains that are pulled across the bedroom window and hits the air in a way that plays along the dust motes rising up from the box Michael had pulled out from under the bed. The box rests off to the side like it’s something offensive, close to the toe of his shoe but not touching it, and he’s more aware of it just sitting there than he is aware of his own breathing; similarly, he’s more focused on the shape of the box, of its presence, than he is of the off-kilter fan whirring above his head, blades cutting through the air halfheartedly in an attempt to cool the hot apartment. 

It’s full of things his ex-girlfriend had given him over the years, and that’s the problem. It’s a sore reminder of the past and all of his faults, of every bad decision he’s ever made that’s led him to sitting on this very floor, heart pounding and stomach twisting at just the thought of his ex. It’s the salt being poured onto a still open wound, the sizzling of regret and the reminder that even if he tried his best it still wasn’t enough.

So it needs to go, to stop being a painful reminder and just become an apathetic memory. He needs to get better, and when the monster under his bed is the thing that’s making him want to make homemade root beer floats, minus the root beer and add the bourbon, he figures it needs to go immediately rather than later.

The box is open and from where he’s sitting he can just barely make out the Zelda T-shirt she gave him for his nineteenth birthday sticking out and hanging over one of the cardboard flaps, the blue material of it trying to draw his attention from the corner of his eye. He very determinedly doesn’t look up from the card, though he finds himself wanting to onerously.

He manages to hold the urge off by the skin of his teeth, because he’s trying very hard not to mess things up for himself by getting emotional or latching onto the things in the box. It’s hard to do, however, when he can see the shirt he wore for practically a week straight after she gave it to him right there in the open, reminding him of everything he once had with her. He doesn’t even have to look at it directly for the memories it comes with to spring to his mind unbidden.

He wants to toss the postcard to the side without care and dig greedily into the box, to pull out all of the things that once made him happy beyond belief and press them close to his chest, so close that they meld into him, right over his heart. He wants to remember what it was like to be with someone who gave him things at random just to make him feel good, just to see him light up. He wants to remember what it was like to be loved by someone again, if not for just a few seconds.

But he knows better by now, knows his limits, so he holds onto the postcard and doesn’t look up.

He affectionately smooths out a crease at the top corner that looks like Geoff must have been nervously folding and then unfolding it, a lot like how you’d dog ear a book to mark your place. The corner has been pushed back and forth so much that it’s no longer stiff, just pliable and soft. Michael tries in vain to smooth it out one last time with his thumb and crosses his legs.

Geoff’s postcard reads:

> _Did you know that hobos have a secret language? Not really a talking language, but like symbols to other hobos. I met a man who’s lived on his own for years and he showed—_

There’s a small arrow drawn at the bottom and he turns to the front of the card. It’s less legible on that side, but that’s mainly just because reading thin ink on a gray-scale photo isn’t easy.

> _me some in exchange for dinner. He had some great stories. I hope I can get stories like his some day. G._

There are two circles drawn next to each other off to the side of the words and they share a side, connected seamlessly, it looks like. It takes Michael a long couple of seconds before he realizes that it must be one of the symbols Geoff was talking about.

He traces it with his index finger twice before he sets the postcard down on the ground, mindful of where it rests so he doesn’t step on it as he clambers up.

He sniffles loudly and grabs the box, hiking it up and pushing himself into motion. He tries not to think about it as he strides from his room to the door of his apartment, opening it up and marching downstairs — straight to the compost area without any detours, looking forward the whole time.

When he's standing there surrounded by various sizes of trash cans, he tips everything over into one of the larger cans and then breaks the box apart, peeling back the glued together flaps and dumping it into the recycling bin (even in his haste to get rid of the painful paraphernalia he remembers Mother Earth, thank you). The whole thing is fast and detached, not leaving him any leeway to grasp for reasons to keep any of the stuff.

 _You have to cut yourself off from all of the things that remind you of your exes like you're amputating a rotten limb. No looking back with the comforting reminder that this will only serve to help you in the long run_ , he reminds himself.

And... okay... he might have watched a few YouTube self-help videos about how to move on after a bad breakup. If anyone asks, he’ll maintain that there’s nothing wrong with seeking help from strangers on the internet.

He wipes his hands together as if to purge himself from all ties to his ex and nods to himself.

“Good riddance,” he says, like he’s been freed from shackles. A man who can finally walk without the metaphorical ball and chain to hold him back.

He makes his way back upstairs and runs into Lindsay in the hall, who comments about his hair looking nice as they pass, but otherwise he makes it back to his room uninterrupted. He’s back into the bedroom in the twinkling of an eye, picking up the postcard and re-reading it like it’s a reassuring sermon, something to soothe the masses who’ve been steeped in fraught — or, in this case — something to soothe Michael’s broken heart.

After he’s read it twice more, he takes it into the kitchen with the others. He bought a small, woven basket just last night from an old CVS store he found a block away, one that he’d placed right next to the refrigerator. He pulls the other postcards off of the fridge and sets them in the basket, taking the newest postcard and putting it smack in the middle of the fridge using a magnet of a cow with the word ‘MOO!’ on it.

Later on, he pulls his laptop out from under the coffee table and starts it up, alternating between waiting for it to load and making himself dinner (a nice pasta recipe that Margaret taught him). After he’s already stirred in the sauce he turns to the laptop, now resting on the counter, and searches for _‘symbols that are used by hobos’._  The first link seems valid enough and is titled  _“Hobo Signs - Worldpath.”_

He clicks on it, skimming over the short description before scrolling down.

There are four separate black and white images depicting various symbols. He looks over some of them at first, fascinated, but then his eyes fixate on the second image. There, in the top right hand corner, he sees the same symbol from the postcard; two circles drawn next to each other, almost like an infinity sign if not for the fact that they’re more ring-shaped than disk-shaped.

The words below the image, which serve to explain the meaning, read, _“Do Not Give Up.”_

He smiles.

•••

Someone up there must really have something against Michael — a personal vendetta to make sure Michael never gets a single day of rest so long as he’s inhabiting the same space that the people on his floor are — because a few days after Michael is sent the fourth postcard, Ray comes over to his place and starts to do what Ray does best: snoop and stick his nose into Michael’s business. Sure, it’s always out of love, but it gets a little repetitive and annoying after a while.

“Who’s ‘Guh’?” Ray asks, face pressed almost too close to the fridge as he squints and tries to make out the words on Geoff’s card, his eyesight shit without his glasses (which are still perched on the edge of the coffee table in the living room from when Ray took them off to fuss with his hair). A second later, his eyes catch on the word ‘hobo’ and he asks incredulously, “Are you friends with a homeless guy?”

“No— Yes? I’m not really— Hey, come on, get away from that, dude.”

Michael quickly shuffles over to the kitchen, rushing to set his beer down on the counter and licking the splash of alcohol he gets because of it off of his thumb as he goes.

He’s not sure why, but the thought of Ray looking over the postcard, of reading what Geoff has sent him, makes his skin crawl in a way that has him biting his tongue to keep from yelling at Ray to get away from the card. Ray reading the postcards Geoff has sent him would feel like an invasion of someone’s privacy — though he’s not sure if he’s worried about Geoff’s privacy or his. It would be intrusive, he thinks, for Ray to read what Geoff has been sending to him.

All of the cards feel personal, like Geoff wrote them specifically for Michael to read and Michael alone. Logically, _reasonably_ , Michael knows that there’s no way Geoff would actually be writing the cards just for him — knows that Geoff probably doesn’t care who is reading it and that he’s just trying to get his thoughts out, trying to find a suitable outlet for himself.

Who’s to say that Geoff isn’t telling the same shit he’s telling to Michael to a bunch of other people?

That thought really shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, because Geoff doesn’t even know him, just knows his address, but reason has seemingly left Michael. Or maybe it’s just never been there to begin with. That would explain a lot, like why Michael didn’t just dump the first postcard into the trash right after he found it in his mail.

It hurts, though. He doesn’t want to be just another person Geoff talks to when he’s drunk or needs to vent to. He wants to be the person (or the place, really, since all Geoff knows about him is his address) Geoff thinks about first after something hilarious happens; the one he writes to right after he finds a twenty dollar bill just sitting in the grass because he’s so excited that he wants to share the information with someone, and Michael is the first person to spring to his mind.

He used to do that all the time when he was still with his girlfriend. He’d think of her and just start texting her about how his day had gone, telling her all about the bad taco truck he ate at and the guy who hit on him while he was taking the train by using a cheesy pick-up line.

He shouldn’t be so attached to the postcards when he only has four to begin with, but it would feel like a betrayal to just show them off to someone else.

There’s something about the cards and the way Geoff writes that has him feeling almost protective of them and of Geoff, as if Geoff is a lost boy asking for someone to help him find his way home instead of someone who probably just got bored and wanted something to occupy their time with.

He grabs Ray’s shoulder and physically tugs him back from the card, moving to stand in between Ray and the fridge.

“I don’t think he’s homeless, anyway; probably more of a vagabond or something,” he clarifies, pausing for a second to consider the thought. He dismisses it after a beat and visibly shakes himself, continuing with, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. He’s just… a pen pal. My pen pal.”

Ray raises his eyebrows, still squinting in that way he does when he’s not wearing his glasses. “I thought people only had pen pals in middle school? And why postcards, man? Can’t you just, I don’t know, send emails like everyone else?”

Michael scrubs a hand over his face, sighing and letting his shoulders fall from where they had slowly inched up around his ears, bunched and tight. He wants to tell Ray to go fuck himself, because it’s none of his business, but he’s friends with Ray and friends don’t act like assholes to other friends over stupid shit like postcards and their senders. So instead he just offers Ray a half-hearted shrug.

“I think he sends the postcards because he’s going from place to place and doesn’t have wifi.”

“So they _are_ homeless?”

“No, I think he might have a car. I don’t actually know for sure, Ray. I don’t really talk back to him.”

That makes Ray’s face twist skeptically, mouth thinning while he pulls back to cross his arms over his chest. His posture reminds Michael of how his mom would always gather herself right before yelling at him about stranger danger and what could happen if he had unprotected sex (he wishes he could forget about those talks, because his mother never had any problem being uncomfortably explicit about STDs while saying ‘dick’ and ‘penis’ this, ‘vagina’ and ‘vulva’ that. He has scars from those talks. Both mentally and emotionally). 

“You don’t know who they are, do you?” Ray’s voice is filled with so much vexation that Michael can practically feel the weight of the accusation — not at all just a simple question when Ray says it like that — against his skin, secondhand disappointment settling over him like a murky cloak made of _‘you should know better’_ s.

Michael sighs again, too defeated to be an ass about it or beat around the bush, and spills. 

“Uh… no? I mean, I know his name, at least. He might know who I am, but I’m not really sure who he is.”

Ray’s quiet for a second, mouth pursed in thought, then, “Is this a rebound thing?”

Michael doesn’t even have the time to sputter indignantly about how wrong that is before Ray barrels on.

“Because I’ve talked to Gavin and he told me you were all emo about your breakup, and now, barely a month later, you’ve started talking to some random creep who keeps sending you postcards? Michael, man, I love you, but that’s pretty dumb. Don’t you think you should try and hold off for a bit? Get some positive juju in you before jumping into another long-term thing?”

All Michael can say, albeit weakly, is, “They started coming after my first week here.”

“What?”

“It hasn’t just started; it’s been two weeks since he started sending them. And it’s not a lot, man, I only have four. It’s no big deal.”

“Okay, but you’re not denying that this is a rebound thing,” Ray points out.

“No! It’s not a… rebound thing,” he says, voice going hushed as if he’s been scandalized.

“So what is it then? Because there’s definitely something here, man. I mean, you put them on your refrigerator like a proud parent getting their kid’s shitty ‘you tried, Timmy’ attendance award or something.”

“I don’t know, Ray,” he admits, finally moving from his stance between the postcard and Ray to head back into the living room where the pizza boxes are, making sure to pick his beer up off of the counter as he goes. “I just think they’re nice to read.”

Ray follows him a short while after — thankfully dropping the line of questioning — now holding two plates and a cup. He sets the two plates down on the floor and his cup on the coffee table, moving to sit opposite of Michael on the carpet, taking his phone out of his pocket as he goes so he can cross his legs easier.

They switch around the two boxes of pizza, one small vegetarian pizza for Gavin, who ended up canceling on them at the last second, and an extra large pepperoni pizza that Ray and Michael were going to share. Ray takes the vegetarian while Michael takes the pepperoni and unpauses Netflix.

They’re both quiet for a few minutes and then Ray turns to him, pizza sauce on his chin and his glasses back on his nose.

“You know,” Ray starts, tone almost approving, “I think this might be good for you; having someone to talk to, I mean. Even if you can’t talk back.”

He offers Michael a small smile and for a moment they just sit there together, eating their pizzas and watching old episodes of The Walking Dead. Michael looks from the TV to the kitchen, where he can see the postcard stuck to the fridge, the words barely more than a blur from such a distance.

Then, because he’s hanging out with Ray here — a well known mother hen — the silence is broken.

“Just don’t get attached to someone you’ll never meet.”

Michael turns his head to look back at Ray and they hold each other’s gazes steadily. He makes no move to touch his pizza, hands gripping tight onto the fabric of his jeans for a split second. There’s a sincerity on Ray’s face that eases something in him, but the undertone of wariness is still there, like Ray thinks this can only go wrong. Michael’s not quite sure if he disagrees with that sentiment.

He doesn’t say anything in response and turns to the TV finally, after a stare down that lasted entirely too long. On screen, Carl runs into Rick’s arms, crying in relief at finally seeing his father after thinking he’d never get the chance again.

•••

The fifth postcard, when it arrives, is Michael’s favorite so far.

It’s been a week and three days since the last one, but he hasn’t been too torn up about it. He actually tries being patient for once in his life, which is something his middle school teachers would be proud of. He didn’t think Geoff would just decide that sending postcards was too much of a hassle without at least sending a final postcard, so he figured a new one would come eventually.

This card is a lot bigger than the rest and he tucks it between the pages of another free magazine as he walks with Jack — who did see the postcard, but remained silent and didn’t ask about who it was from, thankfully — back upstairs.

Jack has a decent sized package in his arms that Michael offers to take since he’s used to heavy lifting at his work, but Jack waves him off and politely tells him that he can handle it. As they crest the stairs Michael turns to him, grabbing his shoulder to keep him from going straight to his room. 

He promised Gavin he’d ask.

“So, Jack…” He busies his hands by shifting the mail around, organizing them by size. “This is going to sound really weird, and I’m sorry in advance, but I wanted to know if you were seeing anyone…?” he trails off and scratches at the back of his ear, looking away from Jack awkwardly.

It feels so childish to ask Jack like this, but he owes Gavin for when Gavin helped him pay his rent when he came up a few twenties short just two days ago.

“What?” Jack asks, eyebrows raised and mouth parted slightly, surprise written all over his face. On the heels of that, he makes a sound like he’s choking and coughs, clearing his throat, and says, “I’m n— Michael. Listen, I like you, you’re great, but I’m not really—”

When Michael’s brain registers what Jack is saying — what he _thought_ Michael meant — his face turns bright red and he’s suddenly pissed off that he even has to do this in the first place, all because Gavin is too much of a chicken shit to just ask Jack himself. 

He cuts Jack off by putting up his hand, signalling for him to just stop. 

Just _stop_ , oh my _God_. He is going to kill Gavin later if he doesn’t die of embarrassment first.

Jack does stop, at least, his mouth snapping shut so fast that Michael can pick up the sound of his teeth clacking together. It makes his own teeth ache in a phantom jolt of pain, not really there but sympathetically felt just at the noisy sound of Jack’s own teeth. Michael notices that Jack’s ears are tipped pink and thank fuckin’ Christ that he’s not the only one who is dying of embarrassment over this whole situation.

“I’m not trying to ask you out. I’m only asking because Gavin — the fucking baby — probably won’t ask you without getting drunk first. And, no offense, but liquid courage can only go so long and I’d fuckin’ bet on it that he’d ask you and then never talk to you ever again. So, here I am. The messenger and the scapegoat.” He makes a one-handed gesture towards his person, his other hand still carrying the mail.

“Oh.” Jack doesn’t say anything else, looking both starstruck and like he’s five seconds from bolting into his room and either throwing up or just never coming out again. Maybe both.

Michael heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“Listen, the British fuck likes you for whatever reason — no offense, by the way, I just can’t help but think of you like my dad, so it weirds me out to even attempt to—” he cuts himself off and scrubs at his face roughly. “ _Whatever!_ Okay, this isn’t the point. Gavin likes you. You, obviously, like him back. Go ask him out or something, because he won’t do it first. He’s a huge, needy baby and will probably need constant messages from you so he knows you haven’t just forgot about him, too, so ask him for his number. Honestly, I don’t know how you two could have lived so long on the same floor together — straight across from each other, at that — and still not have exchanged numbers at least once.”

Jack looks like he wants to say something, mouth opening and closing like he’s trying out a new TMJ stretch, but nothing comes out. Michael’s face softens a fraction, because he can’t help but to feel a little bad for the big guy. He takes another step towards Jack and pats his back, lightly at first and then enough to shove him towards where Gavin’s door is.

“Go get ‘em, man. He’s a moron, but there’s no way he’d say no if you just came out and asked him.”

Jack starts moving slowly and he’s halfway towards Gavin’s door before he turns back to where Michael is still standing at the top of the stairs. He asks, voice shy despite the now determined look in his eyes, “Where should I ask him out to?”

Michael rolls his eyes. “I can’t do all of the matchmaking for you two.” Jack’s face falls for just a sliver of a second before Michael continues on, “Just ask him out to somewhere you’d think you’d both enjoy. I hear there’s a nice mini golf place not far off from the new outlet mall. Maybe try there.”

Jack nods and turns back to where he’s now standing outside of Gavin’s door. Jack sets the package down by his foot and straightens back up to pat his shirt down and fuss with his hair. Michael can hear three tentative knocks and Gavin asking who’s at the door before he closes his own door behind himself.

He grins and heads over to the kitchen island, already pulling the card out from where it was tucked into the magazine. He drops the rest of the pieces of mail down without a care for whether or not they make it to the island or just end up on the floor, the postcard his only real priority.

The card is heavier than the last one and the face of the postcard is covered in some type of sparkly glitter, like a fairy had just sneezed all over it. He runs his hands over it, but none of it comes off, which he’s thankful for, because trying to get glitter off of yourself is practically impossible; encounter even a single spec of glitter and you’ll be seeing that thing on you in various different places for weeks.

Underneath the glitter, though, he can just barely make out the image of a beach and a sailboat off to the side. There’s some kind of big print smack in the center of the card, but the glitter is clumped over the entire left side and most of the middle, making it practically impossible for him to see what it says exactly; he partially makes out the letters, _‘_ _A GRE...T... H...O... T...AS. _’__

He’ll admit that he laughs when he sounds it out to himself, but he never claimed to be mature in the first place. He isn’t sure if Geoff intended for the glitter to clump in such a way that Michael would read the words off like that, but either way he finds it absolutely hilarious. Asses are funny, okay?

This postcard comes from Corpus Christi and he has to take a moment to try and remember why that place sounds so familiar. After few seconds of head scratching and various forms of  _‘maybe, but no… or… nah, that’s not it’_ s, he snaps his fingers and yells triumphantly, “Ryan!”

He winces slightly, looking to his door like the man himself is about to kick down the door and pillage all of his things (okay, so it’s been a month and he’s still afraid of Ryan, sue him. Sure, Ryan is the biggest dorky looking guy he knows, but you know what else Ryan is? A sociology professor who likes throwing knives at the wall for fun and reading about historical forms of brutality. Plus the guy never gets scared, no matter how many scary movie nights the group has). Or worse — Ray coming in and thinking something very, _very_ different was going on. Michael shudders at the thought, lip curling as he tries to shake the thought from his head.

The point, however, has nothing to do with Ray and everything to do with Ryan. He can distinctly remember Ryan mentioning living in Corpus Christi for a while and his interest piques at a familiar place.

He turns his gaze back to the postcard. It’s written in green this time and there are circular scribbles at the top like the ink had almost run out and needed to be revived (which, now that he thinks about it, why does scribbling always bring the ink back? He makes a mental note to google that later). Geoff must be running out of pens.

> _Corpus Christi sucks so many dicks—_

Michael snickers at the phrasing, shifting to pull one of the chairs out from the kitchen island so he can sit and prop his elbows up on the counter.

> _and I’m glad to get out of here. First off, I’m pretty sure someone almost tried to mug me. But no worries, a cop drove past us and they bolted. Maybe they just wanted to sell me drugs, I’m not sure. Second off, there’s almost no one else here and there’s also nothing here. It’s so boring that I hope you can understand the irony of the postcard’s happy beach picture. It’s nothing like that. Sorry about the glitter. I tried to liven up the postcard and somehow it all just got everywhere._
> 
> _I’m pretty sure there’s glitter in my underwear. Geoff._

Michael smiles, picturing Geoff (who he’s pretending looks like Geoff Stults from _7th Heaven_ until otherwise told differently — which would never happen, but… still) trying to glue glitter onto the front of the postcard, accidentally tipping the tube of glitter over so far that the cap falls right off and sends glitter tumbling all over his lap and onto the floor. It’s a hilarious mental image, and he shakes his head as he laughs.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Geoff.”

And if there happens to be too much affection in his voice, well… it’s not like there’s anyone else around to call him out on it.

He stands back up to take the old postcard down and puts it in the designated  Old Postcards basket. Then, he places the new card up on the fridge, writing the date in the corner, and considers just getting a corkboard so he can pin all of the old cards up and save the new ones for the fridge. Or maybe a calendar to keep track of the cards.

He goes back to the living room and kicks off his shoes, ready for a bit of lazing about before he’s asked to go in for work. Gavin calls him (not texts, surprisingly) half an hour later and talks so animatedly that Michael can barely understand his gibberish. It takes Gavin four tries before he can coherently tell Michael that Jack asked him out for mini golf and some go-karting. Michael pretends to be surprised while he beams cheerfully at a random spot on the wall.

It’s a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely going to be the last you'll see of short postcards. I am not above pretending that postcards have a lot more space than two or three sentences worth. xx


	3. Chapter 3

Michael keeps getting postcards from Geoff straight into December; eleven months, sixty-one postcards, and a handful of hours spent reading the cards in total. Somehow, along the way, he ends up falling in love with someone he’s never even met.

It’s not nearly as bad as it sounds, when you get the full story.

So this is how it happens.

•••

 **Crystal City, TX**  
**March 16th, 2015**

_Sitting in a bar that’s pretty empty, drinking Jack, listening to Misfits play on the jukebox, and reading The Tiger’s Wife is the best way to escape the Texas heat. Also a good way to ignore my whiny bullshit. So here’s to that, cheers. G._

_P.S. Sorry about the stain on the card. Some asshole spilled his beer all over the bar. What an unsexy way to get all sticky. Boring._

•••

 **Del Rio, TX**  
**March 18th, 2015**

_So this place is pretty boring. Tons of cougars though. ZING. Seriously, though: the old ladies are hot here. As I’ve aged I can definitely say that my taste in women has too and Stacy’s Mom has never been more appealing to me before. C’est la vie, New Jersey. Or, wait, no. Carpe diem. Yeah, that obscure phrase, not the other one._

_Whatever, I’m gonna go carpe diem the fuck out of some older chicks. Geoff._

•••

 **Marfa, TX**  
**March 22nd, 2015**

_Visited Prada and met a guy who’s been traveling for five years. He took me to the back of his van and showed me all of the cool stuff he’s been collecting and the pictures he’s been taking as he goes. I don’t think I could travel like that for more than a year. Blaine was a good guy. I might take his advice. Thinking about it now, I probably shouldn’t have got in someone’s van in the middle of nowhere. I still made it out alive, but no more taking candy from strangers after this. I don’t want to get mugged for real. Geoff._

•••

 **El Paso, TX**  
**March 27th, 2015**

_Went to catch up with a friend at Red Parrot. We got dinner after they finished up work and I told them all about what I’ve been doing with my life since we last saw each other. Wasn’t much to say, but it felt good to talk to someone I knew. They’re getting by on their own, paying their bills with a good amount of spending money left over. I always wondered what that’d be like, what with being dirt poor as a kid and living paycheck to paycheck as an adult. It was never the fault of my parents’, just the economy was shit, and I never really cared anyway — always fucked off somewhere else with my friends and found our own shit to do that wasn’t going to things that cost us the chump change from our pockets, like to theme parks or the movies (unless we snuck in, which we did often) — but I thought about what’d be like to not struggle. It was a good thought._

_But among all of our chatting, I never mentioned this. These postcards. It just didn’t feel right to tell, and I’m not really sure why. Is it weird that I feel protective of whatever this is? That’s… yeah. I’m a little drunk and need to shut up, sorry. ~~I don’t even know if there’s even anyone readi—~~_

_I’m leaving Texas tomorrow morning. Blaine was right. G._

•••

A bead of sweat rolls down from his forehead and along the sharp of his jaw, following the angled path down along the frame of his face. It builds at his chin and then falls to the ground with a loud _‘plop’_ that Michael swears he can hear so vividly that he can read the word in the air. It’s too stuffy and he has been having trouble catching his breath for the past half hour.

He’s never felt pain quite like this. Michael was once socked in the jaw so hard he passed out, but that sharp, throbbing pain that was rattling around in his skull hours after couldn’t compare to this; a burn stretches along his hamstrings and twists his stomach into knots that makes him a mix of queasy and feverish. His mouth dry, he parts it to pant as his knees weaken and almost buckle under him before he straightens them out again.

“Okay, now down. _Down_. Michael, I said go _down_.”

Lindsay pushes heavily against the space between his shoulder blades, weighing him down as best as she can while his fingers spread wide and just barely graze the mat on the floor.

“Any further down and I’m gonna—” Michael interrupts himself to suck in as much air as possible, lungs burning and tears almost springing to his eyes with the sheer effort he’s putting into this “—fuckin’ snap in two.”

He can’t see Lindsay’s face — too busy looking at his eventual demise, AKA: the floor that’s now inches away from his face and fast approaching having to be measured in centimeters as Lindsay pushes him even _further_ down — but he’s got a sixth sense for all the eye rolls the girls have specifically for him, so he knows she’s rolling her eyes. It’s probably that _quit being a huge baby_ eye roll, too. That’s almost as bad as the _I can’t believe you just said that_ eye roll or the _I’m not mad, just disappointed_ eye roll that makes him feel like a kid again.

Michael feels like he’s a spoiled child when he’s around the two of them and they really shouldn’t feel so much like his parents since Lindsay is younger than him and Meg is only four months older, but Lindsay and Meg have a knack for defying all logical reasoning when it comes to him and everything else in life.

A cat meows from somewhere behind him and it feels like he’s being laughed at. Christ, he hates cats.

“You’re fine, Michael,” Lindsay sighs, worn out from the many ( _many_ ) times she’s had to assure him that he is, in fact, not going to break in half from doing yoga. “Downward-facing dog isn’t even that hard. You should see the stuff Meg makes me do.”

Michael snorts, then cringes at the immediate mental imagine because _ew no_ , and it takes Lindsay a good second before her words register.

She groans out an unamused, “Not like that, you asshole.”

At that, Lindsay jabs at his back and he topples over like he’s nothing but a sandcastle in a hurricane, knees bending and hitting the mat hard as he starts laughing from somewhere deep in diaphragm. He can hear Lindsay huff and he turns around on the ground just in time to see her shaking her head at him, her arms crossed and an affectionately taxed smile playing on her lips.

“You’re really childish, you know that?”

“Hey! That’s why you guys love me so much.” He wiggles his eyebrows and wipes away a tear that’d sprung during his fit of laughter with his knuckle.

Lindsay points her nose up and looks away from him, an air of vainness around her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.

“ _Please_. Like I don’t know that I’m everyone’s favorite.”

“You’re such a narcici—”

Lindsay’s cut off as the door to the apartment swings open and in comes Meg, belting out the words to the mail song from Blue’s Clues. Both he and Lindsay turn to raptly watch as she starts dancing her way over to where they’re at by the kitchen, her hips shimmying and her hair pulled back from her face.

“—it never fails it makes me want to wag my tail, when it comes I wanna wail, ‘MAIL!’” She waves her two handfuls of mail high in the air as Lindsay walks over to kiss her on the cheek and Michael pushes himself back up onto his (wobbly… very wobbly) knees.

He dusts his hands off and nudges his way past Lindsay, who is shamelessly starfished around Meg, to grab his own pile of mail from Meg.

“Thanks, Meg.” 

He places a chaste kiss to her temple and heads over to the door, knowing better than to stay around for much longer when Lindsay won’t let go of Meg, because before he knows what’s happening, they’ll be talking about how in love they are and how much they missed each other when Meg was only gone for twenty minutes tops, and it’s all just very heartwarming and sickening. Love is gross and they’re gross and Michael is only a little bitter that he can’t even just resort to being a lonely cat lady like the rest of the brokenhearted because he’s neither a lady nor a fan of cats.

Before he leaves, he puts his hand on the door and turns to the both of them, making sure to ask, “Are you guys coming to dinner at Margaret’s tonight?” After a second he helpfully tacks on, like they didn’t already know by now, “We’re gonna have some of those hamburgers again with the stringy fries, but she’s probably gonna make us help make those dough ball things while we’re there. _Again_.”

Lindsay nods into Meg’s neck and Meg makes a shooing motion with her free hand, already seeming to have tossed their mail aside so she could pet Lindsay’s hair affectionately.

Michael rolls his eyes, only a little annoyed at being dismissed so easily.

“Yeah, yeah. Later, guys.”

He closes the door to their apartment behind himself and stands out in the hall for a few seconds, breathing out a sigh of relief at finally being free from critical eyes that always seem to be judging where he’s at emotionally as well as mentally. No one else is around, the hall silent and everything still around him, even the world outside of the open window at the end of the hall having paused so Michael can breathe, and he has a moment to himself where he just sags back against the girls’ door and tries to center himself.

When he first moved here he thought it would be too much of a hassle to try and make nice with his neighbors, and he didn’t even think about becoming friends with anyone. He assumed that it’d be the same as when he was back in high school: practically invisible to everyone except his (now ex) girlfriend and Asiya, a crude, middle-aged lunch lady with a hooked nose that would always set aside a free can of Cola for him at lunch since he couldn’t drink milk like the rest of the kids and never had the money to buy anything else.

It’s definitely not something he expected. _They’re_ not what he expected.

It’s not bad. It’s… it’s almost indescribable. It’s like he’s got a family here, in the walls of this complex. It’s like he’s not alone, even when he’s having a shitty day that leaves him annoyed at everything in the world and tearing up from stress. He’s still got his people, the ones that share recipes, make plans that don’t involve sitting around his apartment, and talk about their crummy jobs with him. He’s got them and they’ve got him and it’s nice, really, to know that he’s not alone in the world. That he has people who care about him and would notice if he hibernated for a few months.

If he went around the world, he’d have people to send postcards to. People who’d stick them up on their refrigerators with cow magnets and smile at them while cooking in the kitchen, pressing kisses to the dry ink whenever they need luck.

He chances a look down at the mix of envelopes and fliers in his hands, and among the uninteresting bits and pieces of mail he can see the dark blue, almost green, edge of a thick, square card; it’s glossy, probably one of the more expensive looking cards Geoff has sent his way so far, and Michael can only see a small corner of it, the other pieces of mail blocking the rest of the card out.

He doesn’t touch it directly, not bothering to look over it yet, but his finger does brush lightly against the back of the pile in his hands, almost like he’s reassuring a friend. He hasn’t gotten a letter from Texas in a while and it’s not that he’s been worried per-say, but he’s definitely noticed that it’s been a while. He can tell who it’s from and what it is without looking, so he pulls in a deep breath and marches himself into his own apartment, ignoring the ache in his limbs that only comes with the pain of yoga as the familiar rush of excitement at the prospect of a new card fills him to the brim.

He’s smiling and he doesn’t even realize it, practically fawning over the words he hasn’t even read yet.

He plops the mail down on the table, grabs the postcard up along with a red pen, and flips it over to read the date. The wall right next to his apartment door is now equipped with a large calendar that’s covered in red markings. He adds a quick mark in the square dedicated to March 30th; two circles that are connected in the middle.

He tucks the pen behind his ear and heads into his bedroom, still carrying the card. He makes a quick stop to toe off his shoes as he does so, but ends up in his room nonetheless.

He yawns, hands stretching over his head, and falls down into his bed, face momentarily pressed into the covers as he lets the tension ease from his body. You’d think yoga would relax Michael, but it always has the opposite effect; it bundles up his nerves and gathers all of the tension he feels in his jaw, making it hard for him to stop grinding his teeth. 

He closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy the coldness of his sheets, the relief in being completely straightened out and not pretzeled up like a contortionist (albeit a very bad, not nearly as stretchy contortionist). He turns his head slightly so he can open one eye and look at the postcard in his hand.

The image of a green, bulbous headed alien stares back at him, UFOs and an explosion of some kind off in the distance. The art style looks cartoonish, nowhere near realistic, and the alien seems to be climbing over the word _‘Roswell’_ and underneath that reads _‘New Mexico.’_

He rolls over and holds the back of the card up to his line of sight, reading it out loud to himself.

“Hey there…”

> _Hey there. I’m in the middle of a tourist shop right now and there’s loads of postcards here, so I figured I’d send one (also the lady in here is giving me the stink eye because I still haven’t bought anything, so this will get her off my back. I’m not buying a stupid alien shirt, I don’t care how “cheap” it is). I’m no longer in Texas, which you could probably gather by now. It’s a relief. I’ve been itching to get out of that state since I moved there. It was leagues better than Alabama, but I just… felt like I was missing something there. I’ve been drifting from town to town to city to city for months now. Nothing’s stuck with me, y’know? So I guess I’m going to wander around in different states until I find a place that feels good. Like I belong, maybe. Geoff._

Michael cranes his neck uncomfortably and holds the card closer to his face. There’s the imprint of what look like words that were erased, but he can still see what it says if he squints just so. He’s not a hundred percent sure, but he mouths out the letters as he rubs his thumb over the small tracks the pencil left. When he sounds it out, he frowns, heart aching in a thrum of understanding and with a level of sympathy he normally saves for when he’s watching sad documentaries.

> _I don’t think I ever will._

•••

 **Silver City, NM**  
**April 4th, 2015**

_I wish I could be half as cool as Phillip Marlowe. This motel I’m at keeps playing this self-titled crime show about the character and Marlowe is such a cool dude. Whoever wrote for this show was good at their job, too. I’m having the time of my life watching this (but that could just be the alcohol talking). This might be my new favorite TV show. Geoff._

_P.S. I’m pretty sure I was born twelve years too late. Nothing has been as good as anything before 1963 to me..._

•••

 **Silver City, NM**  
**April 4th, 2015**

_Strike that. My new favorite TV show is Rosemary and Thyme. It’s a British mystery show about two old women who solve murders with gardening. WITH GARDENING. Think Murder She Wrote meets... some super lame gardening show. It’s solely targeted for old housewives from the UK, and for some reason I can’t get enough. My favorite episode so far is “The Language of Flowers”._

_I have no idea how this motel TV is getting these channels, but I’m not complaining. Geoff._

•••

 **Albuquerque, NM**  
**April 7th, 2015**

_Never thought I’d be the kind of person who eats caviar and salmon butter while listening to Metallica... but here I am in Albuquerque and here I am doing it. The older I get, the more I like old Metallica and food that my teenage self would scoff at. Is this a normal thing, New Jersey? Geoff._

_P.S. I woke up this morning to the comforting sight of a FUCKING SNAKE. I almost passed out. Not camping outside for a while._

•••

**Gamerco, NM**  
**April 10th, 2015**

_Been busying myself learning how to play guitar lately. I used to know how a little, back when I was a roadie in my early twenties but I’m much older now. Too old for picking up the guitar again, but I’ve got to occupy my time somehow. So I bought a pretty cheap guitar at a yard sale when I was passing by a small town in New Mexico. It’s nothing special, all scratched up and not tuned well, but it’s mine. I never used to like acoustics but they grow on you like a lot of other things do. Smoke On The Water will be my bitch by the end of the month, though. Swear on it. Gfunk out. (That’s my stage name now. I’ve decided.)_

•••

 **Flagstaff, AZ**  
**April 16th, 2015**

_Was given a book by the smartly dressed man whose car I helped jump start this morning._ “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.” _The title is a mouthful, but I’ve already read most of it and it’s only been a few hours. It’s pretty dense — a difficult read, I suppose — but also pretty short. But I guess this isn’t really about the book — there was a quote before the first chapter that’s stuck with me through the day and even now as I’m writing this postcard I can’t stop thinking about it._

_“Nothing to fear in God. Nothing to feel in death. Good can be attained. Evil can be endured.”_

_Maybe you’ll think some about it too. G._

_P.S. Visited the Monte Vista Cocktail Lounge. Last time I played here was eighteen years ago back when I was a roadie for Catch 22. Very nostalgic._


	4. Chapter 4

**Enoch, UT**  
**April 21st, 2015**

_Did you know that there is a kind of music called New Orleans Bounce? I didn’t either. Apparently I’ve been living under a rock for the majority of my life. What other insane regional dance/music scenes am I missing out on? Geoff._

•••

 **Duchesne, UT**  
**April 26th, 2015**

_Just passing through Utah when I look out my window and see a wild donkey running alongside my car. It scared the holy hell out of me at first, but I swear I’ve never seen anything more hilarious in my life. Just wanted to tell someone about it. Geoff._

_P.S. I’ve been going shirtless because of the heat and it’s given me a tan like George Hamilton. Willy Wonka’s gonna come after me thinking I escaped the factory pretty soon here._

•••

 **Mesa, CO**  
**April 29th, 2015**

_I just watched Burglar for the first time since I saw it in the theater back in... 87. Shit, I’m old. Holds up really well, though. That Whoopi Goldberg was fucking awesome in the 80s. I don’t know where she went wrong, but she sure did. Next to Eddie Murphy, she’s got to have the most disappointing film career to me. From Jumping Jack Flash and Burglar to Sister Act and Racing Stripes. I guess when you lose your edge, you go for the family angle. Anyway, Burglar had it all: Whoopie, Bobcat, G.W. Bailey, John Goodman... all at the top of their game. I miss the 80s. Geoff._

_P.S. Meesa Jar-Jar Binks. Meesa have a huuuuge schlong._

•••

 **Aspen, CO**  
**May 2nd, 2015**

_Back in the saddle again totally by chance. I’ve been doing small things for people as I go, y’know? Just odds and ends and leftover work that no one has bothered to do. So I fixed this guy’s car up for him and he invited me into his house for a beer. When it comes to alcohol, I’m more of a spirit kind of guy (always a fan of gin and vodka), but I’m not gonna turn an offer for free anything down, so I go with him. Twenty minutes later I’m leavin’ with a joint, a six-pack of beer I don’t want but was too polite to turn down, and twenty bucks for my troubles.  (flip ⇓)_

_I haven’t been high since Bean, Tomas, Mingus, and I all sat back in Bean’s old Ford on prom night — stuck out in the parking lot of an old theater in Alabama (it used to be one of those porn showing joints before it closed down) without any fuel, and all we had was one badly rolled up joint and zero alcohol. Just a couple of loser teenagers with nothing to do and no one who liked us except us._

_I’m watching the stars tonight and hoping life is great for them. G._

•••

 **Akron, CO**  
**May 9th, 2015**

_Leaving Colorado tonight and heading for Kansas. No real reason to go further to the east when I could go west, but I’m still heading east. I’ve always wanted to go to Oregon but I guess I’ll save that for when I have my — statistically average in the US — 40 year-old midlife crisis and start banging chicks and dudes like my dick will fall off if I don’t. That’s not far away, actually. Better start buying all the condoms now. Any volunteers? G._

•••

 **Colby, KS**  
**May 11th, 2015**

_Sitting in a bar and drinking from a bottle that’s almost sweating as bad as I am while the entire Crass “Feeding of the 5000” album plays on the jukebox. I’m definitely in the right city. But do not, I repeat, DO NOT eat the wings in Colby. It won’t be the experience you were looking for, even if they look good. Trust me. Geoff._

•••

 **Wichita, KS**  
**May 13th, 2015**

_Is May too early to start thinking about what your New Year’s resolution will be? I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. Trying to figure out what I’m doing with my life and where I’ll be in a year. I don’t think about the future much, just let the pieces fall where they may, but maybe I should have a plan already. I’m so close to being halfway to rotting in an old folks home anyway… should I have a mortgage and a nine-to-five under my belt by now? I never thought I’d be experiencing an existential panic in the middle of a run-down diner in Kansas that looks a stone’s throw away from an open invitation for truckers to get blown in the bathroom and collect the STDs that come with that, but here I am. I should buy a motorcycle. OK, maybe I’ve already hit my midlife crisis… shit._

_I’m still mulling my resolution over. G._

•••

Michael thumbs his way through the pages of Margaret's unofficial cookbook with flour marking his brow and the egg whites of the many eggs he’s had to crack open in the past thirty minutes alone drying out on his hands, which has left his fingers to get all flake-y and tight feeling. He hums under his breath and withdraws his hands from the book, thinking about how after he finishes up here he’s going to have to soak in the bath for a long time and then go out and buy some hand lotion because his hands feel all gross after the mess of albumen that’s gotten on them. This whole baking thing is really kicking his ass, so he thinks he deserves a nice hot bath for his troubles. Maybe he’ll even get a little wild and take a bubble bath instead of a regular bath, which would help to ease his stress levels and he could even cup bubbles up into his palm and smear them up against his face while pretending to have facial hair for once in his life.

Margaret’s “unofficial cookbook” that he has splayed out on the counter between the stove and sink is really just a white, spiral-bound notebook with a drawing of a slice of pie on the front cover — which he suspects Meg drew on when she’d borrowed it the week before to help her cook for her anniversary dinner with Lindsay — and stains from when the grease on various stoves had popped while cooking and wet hands from rinsing out measuring cup after measuring cup for ingredients turned the pages, but he likes to think of it as a cookbook, what with the plethora of directions on how to make this and that and the secret family recipes that Margaret makes everyone that uses the notebook swear under oath not to tell to anyone else about.

The unofficial cookbook is currently flipped open to the four page long section on cakes, which Michael is quickly coming to realize is his least favorite thing to try and make ( _seriously_ , it’s worse than when he tried to make Eggs Benedict for Meg and Lindsay as a way of apologizing for accidentally stepping on the paw of Penny, Meg’s dachshund puppy — it was a complete disaster, the food tasting horribly despite using Margaret’s cookbook, but Meg and Lindsay still accepted the apology on behalf of Penny so that was a win), because it’s two days from Gavin’s twenty-seventh birthday.

Now normally one wouldn’t be looking at recipes for baking cakes when someone’s birthday is still two days away, but because Jack will be taking all of Gavin’s time up on his actual birthday, the gang are holding Gavin’s birthday party today. Much to Michael’s chagrin, the birthday party is supposed to be held in his apartment instead of the more logical choice of Gavin’s or Jack’s.

Margaret was the one who decided that they should have a birthday party in the first place, insisting that a boy’s twenty-seventh birthday is still as important as his eighteenth and that it would be Michael’s first birthday with the rest of the group (though it’s not _his_ birthday in particular), so why not celebrate? Michael couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to say no that wouldn’t make him out to be a complete dick, so it’d been decided.

So she’d dished out all of the responsibilities to the group: Meg and Lindsay were at the store buying the birthday party supplies they were told to get (which he suspects means they’ll come back with things like brightly colored balloons, paper plates, utensils, and napkins marketed towards little kids); Ray was in charge of picking the gift out that they all pitched their money in for (Lindsay had told Ray that if he came back with a gag-gift there was a high probability that she’d hold him in a chokehold and when Ray had looked toward Ryan for support Ryan had just said, totally unperturbed, “Same.”); Ryan was busy cleaning up the grill and getting the hot dogs, fries, and hamburgers made; Jack was the one who had the job of keep Gavin out of the apartment complex and busy until they were ready; and Michael — for some reason — was the designated cake maker despite Michael admitting to Margaret that he’d never made cake before and that it would most likely end in disaster.

And all of this left Margaret bereft of any duties, but she pulled the “I’m a fragile old lady” card and got out scot-free. Michael couldn’t even be mad about it because she had sweetly patted him on the cheek and told him that he was a cooking natural when he was about to say something. This means, of course, that he’d just ended up smiling goofily for the remainder of the day and went back to his apartment without saying another word edgewise. Just stroke his ego a bit and he will willingly wrap himself around anyone’s finger.

Michael rolls his eyes at himself. This is all his fault.

He looks down at his body and the mayhem that is his clothes, dark Henley covered white with flour and the now dry remnants from earlier when he’d dumped his first batch of ingredients all over himself and ruined his kitchen floor. There’s egg yolk in his hair and an obscene amount of cinnamon still irritating his nose and refusing to go away. Somehow all of his ingredients have found their way either on the floor or all over him at some point or another.

Baking is fucking _hard_ , okay? Michael will never take a single cupcake or cookie for granted ever again, so help him God.

There’s a knock on his door and he curses under his breath, looking from where the (fifth attempted) cake is slowly rising in the oven and then towards where the noise is coming from, trying to decide if he should risk it and answer the door or not move a single muscle and just tell whoever is at the door to come later, preferably when he hasn’t burned the cake to shit.

“God damn it,” he mutters.

He points two of his fingers towards his eyes in a ‘V’ shape and then turns them to the stove and back again, scowling as he does it.

When he’s satisfied that he’s thoroughly threatened the cake back from even _thinking_ about burning, he hurries over to the door and tugs it open, not worried about the mess that is his current self, just wanting to get back to where he’d been standing watch over the oven.

Margaret stands on the other side of the door with an amused look in her eye, wrinkled hands clutching at an array of letters.

“Michael, dear.” She nods towards him in greeting.

“Shit, yeah. Hey, Mags. Sorry about, uh…” he gestures down at himself with one hand while the other runs through his hair out of stress. “What’s up? You finally caving in and giving me a helping hand?”

“I’d never steal a learning opportunity away from a fledgling baker that’s getting better each day, Michael,” she responds smoothly and Michael flushes at the small compliment. “I’m just here to give you your mail since I noticed your mailbox was full.”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks, Mags. I totally forgot about getting it; I’ve been swamped here,” he admits, wiping his palms on the sides of his jeans and opening his still-not-clean-but-adequate-enough hands for her to place the mail into.

“It’s not a problem, dear. I’m always happy to lend a helping hand when you’re otherwise occupied.”

She passes the mail over and he holds it in the crook of his elbow while she stands there, still not moving.

“Uh… is there something else?” he asks apprehensively, shifting slightly.

He really hopes she’s not about to ask him to bake something else.

Her face remains curiously blank and she nods. “I noticed a postcard in the mix.”

He groans immediately, already gearing up for another interrogation. At this point everyone on his apartment floor has talked to him about the postcards except for Margaret, the girls, and the still unseen man in the apartment at the end of the hall. It’s been three months of constant questions and it’s nice to know everyone cares, but also extremely annoying at this point.

“Don’t make this out to be something it’s not, because everyone else already has for you,” he beseeches with more resignation in his voice than he intended for there to be.

“No, no. I just wanted to let you know that I have a few, too.”

His heartbeat picks up and he straightens himself quickly, perking up at the words.

“What?”

“There are some postcards I have from before you came around. Not from your sender, obviously—” Michael sags “—but I used to have a pen pal. She’d send me postcards all the time from all over the world.”

Margaret smiles, brown eyes going distant and unfocused, almost appearing to fog up. Michael can see the fondness etched along her face, the corners of her mouth going soft, and he wonders for only a second if that’s how he looks when he talks about Geoff to the others before he dismisses it.

“She was somewhat of a famous connoisseur of wine and food, I suppose. She’d get offers to go here and there, constantly moving to try out the things people wanted her to review. It was… I suppose the word to describe the feeling I got while experiencing life through her adventures would be ‘thrilling’. She would write me cards all about where she was traveling next and all of the exciting things she was doing in all of these different lavish places. Sometimes she’d even write letters instead of sending postcards when she had too much to say and not enough space.”

She looks at Michael and her smile falls slowly, hand coming up to push one of her graying strands of hair behind her ear.

“I’ve never felt more connected to a person in my life. She’d bare her soul to me and I’d do the same in turn, because we had no worries about anything we said coming back to us. We never thought we’d meet after all, what with her being busy all the time and the family I’d dedicated my life to at the time.

“But, one day, right out of the blue, we met. I didn’t know it was her at the time, my frivolous self being too distracted by something or the other to connect the dots together, but I guess she knew it was me right from the start. And I don’t know what she saw in me or what about me flipped some switch in her head, what it was about meeting me in person that made her feel any different, but that was the last time I ever talked to her.”

Margaret eyes him up sadly, seeming to look through him as she talks. It’s almost as if she’s reading him like he’s an open book, eyes hard and soft and knowing all at once. The eyes are the windows to the soul after all and Michael doesn’t even want to imagine what she’s seeing in him, because he doesn’t even look at himself like that. He doesn’t allow himself to ever look past the surface under any circumstances, because he lives in denial a good amount of the time. It’s something that Ray is always on his case about, how he needs to think critically about himself. How he can’t just go through life taking things for face value, especially when it comes to his own emotions.

Michael knows this, but he has always been terrified of what he would discover if he let himself really think about things.

He swallows heavily and finds his throat to be tighter than it was moments before while his heart works in double time to tattoo itself along where it’d dropped to his stomach. There’s a sudden weight on his shoulders that has him developing a nervous little tremor in his legs, knees knocking slightly together, and he wants to blame it on lack of sleep and worn out limbs. Except that’s the thing: he _wants_ to blame it on that, but he knows it isn’t true.

“She stopped sending me postcards after that, like it was easier than ever to move on. It probably was, since she lived a rich life and had to be here or there every day — she was always going on about her schedule being filled and all of the interesting people she was meeting with. I imagine it couldn’t have been that hard to forget about a boring housewife like me who couldn’t tell you the difference between wine and champagne.

“But I was so confused, you see. I felt like this connection I had with this person had snapped and with it went my heart, leaving me without anyone to talk to truthfully anymore. I thought something had happened to her and I scoured all the newspapers I could find trying to see if she’d been hurt or worse, when I came across a picture of her.”

She shakes her head, eyes achingly sad, and Michael wants to apologize to her like it’s his fault or something he could’ve prevented even though it was probably long ago, and back then he would have still just been a wailing baby shitting his diapers and not letting his parents sleep.

“When I found out I had met her I was confused about why she didn’t say anything, but then I realized it was because I wasn’t what she expected. I wasn’t what she wanted to see. Maybe she’d imagined me being someone else or what have you, but she didn’t want me to be the person I was.”

She’s quiet for a long time and Michael stands there awkwardly with fidgeting hands that don’t know what to do with themselves. When she starts speaking again she looks him right in the face, eyes set in determination.

“The last time I got a letter from her I was just shy of twenty-two and I still hope to this day that I’ll be sent a postcard from somewhere around the world and she’ll pick up right where she left off, telling me all about her adventures and whose hearts she’d left wanting. After all these years I still want to read her words just one more time.”

Michael opens his mouth to say something to comfort her, but he doesn’t know how you respond to a confession like that. So, instead of some convoluted admission along the same vain, all he says back is, “I’m sorry.”

“No, Michael, dear, don’t be. I’m not saying this to discourage you from speaking to your friend. I just want you to know that no one has any right to criticize your relationship with them. If my friendship with her still lasts to my old, curmudgeon age now then there’s no telling how long yours will last with your friend.” She offers him a kind smile and it warms him more than anything else has in weeks.

“Thanks, then.” He grins back, pulling the pile of mail to his chest. “I’d, uh… I’d hug you but I’m kind of sticky and covered in what should’ve been Gavin’s first birthday cake. So.” He offers her another smile.

“Dear, do yourself a favor and go take a shower.”

She nods once, waves goodbye to him, and then walks away like she hasn’t just done the equivalent of pantsing him and then running away to leave him bewildered and emotional with that story — like Michael’s hands aren’t shaking like an earthquake and his head isn’t spinning because of what she just told him. His eyes follow her as she goes and he furrows his brow when she walks to the end of the hall and slides a small pile of mail that he’d thought had been hers under the door that the once-thought-to-be-dead-because-Gavin-is-an-actual-idiot man lives behind.

He ducks back into his apartment without watching her pull back up and enter hers, just closes the door behind him and looks down at his own mail with a shuddering release of the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

The new postcard is smaller than usual with the words _‘Vermillion, Kansas’_ written in bright red across the background. The card depicts the serene — yet still generic to all postcards from anywhere in the Midwest — image of a vast pasture with cattle grazing along in the foreground. It features an array of bright colors, blues and greens and pinks and yellows abound, and the sunrise in the background of the card looks gorgeous.

Michael finds himself breathing easier while looking at the postcard, the colors of it easing the tension from his jaw and the nervous tick of his finger.

He scratches at the gloss of the card with the nail of his thumb and heads to the calendar as he always does when he gets a new card. He chews on the inside of his cheek and flips to the back of the card to look at what Geoff’s written. He abruptly pauses with his free hand in the jar full of pens and sharpies that rests on the edge of the kitchen island, mouth turning down into a frown.

The back of the card is almost empty except for a tiny scribble, missing the normal paragraph Geoff would write depicting how he has been faring since the last time Michael received a postcard. Michael furrows his brow but fingers one of the pens up into his hand and all the way out of the jar, moving over to mark the date, May 21st, on the calendar with a thick symbol of two circles meeting in the middle.

He looks back down to the card and blindly shoves the pen back into its designated jar, mind whirling about what it means that Geoff has left the card all but blank.

Has he decided to stop sending cards? Is the postcard just going to say _“bye”_ and that’s all Michael will get? Just one word to signal the end of whatever this has been? His “pen pal” ditching him because he’s finally found whatever it was he was searching for in Vermillion, Kansas?

Michael shakes his head because that’s _ridiculous_. If Geoff was done with this Michael is sure he’d send something more than one word, because Geoff sent him a whole card just to say sorry for sending the first postcard while drunk. And it’s also ridiculous because it’s only one word and Michael could read it in less than a second if he would just look at the card instead of spending a long time agonizing about the possibilities of what the word could be.

 _But_. But what if it really is the end?

Michael pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and opens his eyes, which he hadn’t even realized he closed, and looks down at the card.

The only word there is in bold, the marker it was written with having been pressed into the card so hard that the ink had begun to bleed over the edges of the original lines and ended up getting smudged during its time traveling from Geoff to Michael. Thankfully, though, he manages to read it after a couple of stilted seconds of inspection.

> _Letter._

Michael squints at the word, trying to decipher its meaning. His immediate thought is that either this is one of the postcards Geoff has written while incredibly intoxicated, or Geoff is very confused about how the English language works and doesn’t know how letters have to be put together to form words. Or Geoff thinks a postcard with the word “letter” written on it is funny, which wouldn’t surprise Michael in the least. 

After a few seconds of listless staring and Michael inwardly laughing at himself for thinking Geoff would stop sending postcards just like that, Michael realizes that there is probably a letter from Geoff, because that’s the most logical and blatantly obvious reason for Geoff to write that.

He chews on his bottom lip as he goes back to where he’d dropped the rest of the mail off on the coffee table. It takes him a while, but after a minute of shuffling things around, he finds the letter — or, well, it’s more of a manilla envelope than a letter. The shoddy cursive on the front is the only indication he needs that it’s from Geoff and he takes it from the pile.

He slides his finger under the flap of the seal and tears through the adhesive, flipping the envelope upside down and shaking it a little until a thick, folded piece of photo paper falls out into the palm of his open hand. He frowns, tossing the envelope aside to unfold the paper.

It’s a painting, simplistic and done only in black and gray with little shading, of the figure of someone's back as they walk away from the artist; they’re bracketed in by a thinly lined box, lines wavering and unsteady with the artist’s hand. The top corners are adorned with a rectangular shape and a solid black triangle that has been colored in. At the top of the drawing, but not outside of the box, there are words written in all caps that he cants his head at as he reads them to himself.

_I THOUGHT CALIFORNIA WOULD BE DIFFERENT._

Michael stares at the drawing for a long while, looking over the uneven streaks where the artist didn’t press down hard enough for the paintbrush to fill the paper and the way the photo paper makes the white areas look glossy. When he gently runs the tips of his fingers over the paper he can’t feel the imprint of the paint, so he doesn’t think it’s the original. At least, if it is the original then it was definitely done with a very thin amount of paint.

He turns the picture over to see if there’s anything on the back and, _yep, there it is_. Geoff has seemingly wrote a short paragraph and Michael’s thankful, though he’s not sure if it’s for the insight into what the painting means or just the promise of more than one word from Geoff after more than a week without anything new from the man.

Normally he would be against effacing any piece of art, original or not, but he finds that he doesn’t much mind the prospect of it when it’s Geoff that’s done it.

> _Found this in a small corner store with odds and ends and bought it without even thinking about it. Actually surprised it was there in the first place. I recognized it right away. Raymond Pettibon, one of my favorite artists. He’s a big deal to a Black Flag fan like me, but you probably don’t know him if you’re not in the punk scene. He’s a big deal to a lot of people. I don’t really want to get sappy here, so I won’t say much, but I can relate to the piece now more than I ever could. Passing it off to you. Maybe you’ll relate too. G._

Michael licks his lips. He looks around at his empty apartment, knowing full well that it’ll be filled with everyone that lives on his floor in a few hours.

There’s a small cactus growing on the windowsill above the sink that Ray had bought him almost two months ago (a futile attempt to get Michael to focus on something other than the postcards for once. It’s worked a little, but not much); there’s an iPod dock and an old second generation iPod laying on the coffee table, the one he’d borrowed from Meg a few days ago when he’d needed something to listen to while cleaning the apartment up; the Crock-Pot Margaret had given to him as an “apartment-warming” gift is still sitting in its box on the counter and gathering dust (he makes a mental note to do something with it soon); Ryan’s duck hat is laid out on the designated eat-here-when-Margaret-is-around-or-experience-a-lengthy-rant-about-eating-while-watching-TV table, all but forgotten by Ryan who hasn’t come to pick it up despite the days it’s been laying there (and, by all means, he could just take it over to Ryan, but it’s not like it bothers him much).

There are more things, small things, that Michael knows are scattered around his apartment and that certainly don’t belong to him (he’s pretty sure the shoes he’s wearing right now are actually the ones Gavin had left over at his place when they all came back from that trip to the creek last weekend — the trip that took them half an hour away to the downtown portion of New Jersey, where Michael may have pushed Gavin into the water and got clay and sand in Gavin’s shoes, which resulted in Gavin squawking about how Michael would have to buy him a new pair and _blah blah you got my bloody shoes wet blah_ — which would explain why they’re a little small for him).

There are so many pieces of everyone else in his home and they’re crowding around him like a snake around his throat, squeezing him in and reminding him that they are there every time he starts to forget. They’re leaving him with no room to himself, no time to get lost in thought and wallow in self pity, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

When he came here he thought he’d be living with a group of shut-ins who’d want nothing to do with him, but now he’s got an apartment full of other people’s things and a growing collection of postcards from someone he’s never even met. It’s definitely not a bad thing.

He smiles fondly at nothing in particular.

“New Jersey’s not what I expected either, weird art dude,” he agrees, talking out loud to himself.

Or maybe he’s talking to Mr. Pettibon himself, hoping that the man will hear it from wherever he is in the world. Michael would like that.

He puts the illustration up on the fridge next to the pictures from the zoo trip he took two weeks ago, the one he went on with the rest of the guys while the girls were busy, and — praying to any god he can think of that it hasn’t already burned in his absence — goes back to stiffly watching the cake.

If he finds himself looking at the artwork on his fridge more often than the birthday cake, well... it’s not like anyone else is around to badger him about it.

•••

 **Lorimor, IA**  
**May 26th, 2015**

_Lorimor is the kind of place people overlook. A place people only really go through when passing it by to reach another more sensational place. It’s relatively quiet, streets mostly empty and uncared for like the sidewalks and parking lots, homes dilapidated and buildings going to rack and ruin. But it's OK. Kind of quaint and smaller than I'd imagined, but not entirely bad. I met a nice lady who’s letting me sleep in her shed tonight. I’m gonna fix up her backyard in the morning, I think. Pay it forward, y’know? But, for now, goodnight, New Jersey. G._

•••

 **Smithfield, IL**  
**June 2nd, 2015**

_I don’t know how else to say it, but my teenage self would hate the me of now. He’d probably try and kick my ass. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but Fleetwood Mac actually sounds pretty damn good. What the fuck, right? This weird witchcraft store I was at a few hours ago was playing them and I actually fuckin’ enjoyed it. I mean, it was like a cult of Fleetwood Mac enthusiasts in there and everyone was dressed in cloaks and shit. I got the heebie-jeebies. If the rest of my postcards from here on out become about bad music and crystal balls or whatever, then know that I was officially inducted into a Fleetwood Mac/witch cult against my will. G._

•••

 **Shelbyville, IN**  
**June 9th, 2015**

_Being up north is definitely better than the south in the summer. I mean, I actually wore a jacket this morning. Granted, I had to take it off before it even hit noon, but for a few short and glorious hours it was actually chilly! Woohoo! (That was not a sarcasm laden woohoo, it was genuine.) Since it’s getting pretty hot I think I’ll hit up a bar. Y’know, most people will say that lemonade or water is the best thing to drink to beat the summer heat, but for me it’s gotta be an ice cold Jack and Coke. Nothing more refreshing than that when you’re sweating through layers of clothing and starting to look like Clay Aiken after all his foundation’s melted off. G._


	5. Chapter 5

It takes Michael almost five months after getting the first postcard from Texas before it really hits him.

When Michael thinks about it — like really proper thinks about it, sitting down at his small pseudo-dining table and actually having a moment to himself to consider everything — he realizes that he should have just listened to Ray’s wise advice/warning from the get-go.

As he stares at the scattered stack of postcards in front of him — all in various states of duress, some stiff and pristine while others are spotted with rain and coffee stains and creased more than Michael’s only good suit is — he’s hit with it all. An all at once inescapable thing that just pile drives right into him like he’s a worthless punching bag of emotional vulnerability.

The postcards are more and mean more than they should to him.

It’s a relief, admitting it to himself after spending so long outright denying it.

They’re more than Michael thought they could or would ever be, too, which makes it worse. Because he really should have expected this, and if he would’ve then he could’ve taken some preventive measures to keep himself from being hurt too bad, at least.

But, as his mom always used to say, “‘Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve’ has never changed the past.”

And it hasn’t. And it won’t. And Michael will forever be stuck like this: clinging to postcards from some vagrant nomad named Geoff who is nothing more than a concept of a person, fragile and malleable and everything Michael has been unhealthily attached to almost from day frickin’ one.

Geoff is, in reality, no more real to him than his old imaginary friend that he used to talk to when everyone else in his kindergarten class was ignoring him, showing off all of his dolls to his imaginary friend who would always say how cool the dolls’ clothes were.

And, yet, Michael is still overly attached to him and the postcards he sends.

It’s not like the revolution about what the postcards mean to him is world stopping or something that’s going to keep him from functioning like a normal human being, but it’s… an eye-opener, to say the least.

His floormates were right: his obsession with the postcards was definitely detrimental to himself, especially after such a painful breakup that left a mark on him. After such a long time of him being with somebody, having someone to come home to and just talk about the most trivial things with, he should have tried to be by himself for a while. Sure, he never technically had someone to come home to, but he had some _thing_. Which, to him at least, Geoff’s messages felt like he was coming home to someone — no matter how deranged and vaguely creepy that sounds.

It’s not like his friends didn’t warn him, because they did — Ray, in particular, was very adamantly against the postcards the second he found out about them — so it’s not entirely out of the left field. He should have expected this to happen. He should have known even without the help of his friends. He’s always been one to get too attached, like back when he was in second grade and cried for hours because he was going on Spring Break, which meant he wouldn’t see Harriet, the class bunny, until the next week.

He doesn’t even know what Geoff looks like, for Christ’s sake, and he’s become more attached to him than he has to anything else in his life. He’s not even half as attached to his favorite film director (who he has seen all of the movies of — even the bad ones) as he is to Geoff.

He’s never even going to meet Geoff, let alone talk to him.

He guesses it’s just his fucking luck, right?

•••

 **Cincinnati, OH**  
**June 13th, 2015**

_When are people going to learn that there’s absolutely nothing cool about rollerblades? Maybe in the 80s, but let these fads die out, please. Next thing you know neon windbreakers and fanny packs are going to make a horrendous comeback (if the hipsters haven’t already started wearing them). I’ve seen three real life people on rollerblades so far and I’ve only been driving for about an hour. Where are they coming from? Is there a rollerblading convention going on somewhere down here that I just don’t know about? A secret filming of Airborne II: Rollerblade Harder? Jesus Christ, there goes another one. FOUR ROLLERBLADERS. I can’t believe this. G._

_P.S. Also, dude, what the fuck is Ohio weather? Yesterday it was so cold I could feel my dick shriveling up and today I’m practically drowning in my own sweat. What kind of hell is this place? Why is there only corn and cows?_

_P.P.S. What was up with that ‘Hell Is Real’ billboard I just passed by on I-71? And I thought Alabama was bad._

•••

 **Glencoe, OH**  
**June 19th, 2015**

_I’ve never felt more confused about the direction life has taken me — so unsure of where my feet are landing on the ground as I walk forward and if the ground will even be able to hold me up in the first place. It’s terrifying. I can’t seem to make enough jokes or smile wide enough to make myself believe I’m not miserable. I need to get out of this post office before I suffocate with the smell of the stamp adhesives sticking to my clothes. If only this lady would leave me alone. I need a drink and a decent night’s sleep for once._

_40 years of this. Happy birthday to me. G._

•••

 **Yukon, PA**  
**June 22nd, 2015**

_After more than a year without it, it seems my insomnia has returned :(_

_Please have copious amounts of liquor and liquor related products ready for my much needed consumption stat. Time for some bootlegged ol’ Alabama NyQuil. My dad used to get drunk to fall asleep before he ditched mom, so, hey, I can try it too. Except, unlike that asshole, I’m not going to bail on the people that count on me afterwards. No hard feelings, though, pops. I’m sure Hell is already kicking your ass enough for me anyway. G._

•••

 **Franklin, PA**  
**June 25th, 2015**

_I have no idea where I’m going. Do I go further up north or keep going east? Or should I just say fuck it and go south again? I’ve been missing Frank lately, too — not some random guy I know, but an upscale hot dog and bar joint that features some seriously crazy ass stuff. They have Waffle Fry Nachos, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Seriously, if you ever go to Austin, visit Frank. If the Waffle Fry Nachos don’t win you over, then let me point out that their whiskey is immersed with bacon. Literal bacon. God, as I’m writing this I can feel my arteries blocking up and the heart attack getting ready to happen. I can actually feel myself dying while thinking about the whiskey, but it’s a delicious death. Mmm… Frank. Geoff._

•••

When Michael pulls the sink’s pipe off and sees the disgusting amount of hair — short, blond, and scraggly — that’s sticking to the sides at the end of the tube, right where the curve is, he levels Ryan with a look so full of distaste that he’s pretty sure Ryan must think he’s reliving that traumatic moment from his childhood when he walked in on his parents going at it.

Ryan stares back at him from where he’s been standing by the door, alternating between helpfully handing him the tools he asks for and holding onto the bucket that Michael had to use earlier.

“You okay?” asks Ryan, who seems completely oblivious to the utter disgust on Michael's face being directed at him.

Michael is splayed out under the sink, head throbbing from the many times he’s bumped it into the cabinet while trying to see the pipes clearer (okay, maybe it’s mostly just throbbing because he tripped going down the stairs earlier) and his hands are covered in gunk and goop.

He’s been at it for about thirty minutes now, doing this and that while Ryan asks what’s this and what’s that. He’s been very patient, truthfully, when all he’s wanted to do was tell Ryan to fuck off and leave him to work on the sink. But, well... who else would badger him with questions about the difference between a Torx external and a Torx internal?

He inches his way out from under the sink and sits up on the floor, holding the disgusting pipe in his hand at a good distance away from his person. It’s not nearly as bad as the other types of pipes Michael has had to deal with while at work, but it’s still gross and his stomach has been rolling squeamishly ever since earlier in the morning and the gunk in the pipe is only adding to his nausea. 

“Bucket, please.”

Ryan hands it over wordlessly and Michael wastes no time in holding the pipe over it, shaking it and then grabbing the Zip-It to get everything that’s stuck. When he’s thoroughly pushed the hair and other disgusting sundry out of the tube, he connects it back to the pipes under the sink and hands the bucket back to Ryan to take care of.

“So the pipes were all clogged up, right?” he asks Ryan with a raised brow, motioning for Ryan to come over and test the tap and make sure the sink doesn’t clog again. It doesn’t, and Ryan steps back over to the doorway after turning the water off. “And that’s it? There’s nothin’ else you need me to do?”

Ryan nods twice, hefting up the bucket full of the sludge-y concoction that had fallen out of the pipe when Michael pushed the Zip-It into the tube.

“And now it’s not, thanks to me. But, Ryan… I have to ask, man… what kind of person shaves their beard — and I hope for your sake that that was only beard hair, dude, because if I just pushed your pubes through a tube I will literally dump that entire bucket out over your head — in the sink?”

Ryan stares at him for a long while, not wavering even an inch to the side. And then he stares at him some more.

“This kind of person?” Ryan responds back with a timid gesture to his person, not totally confident in his answer and making it sound like a question.

 _God_ , his head is killing him.

“No, a fuckin’ _idiot_ shaves their beard in the sink. I can’t believe I had to do this for you. Next time you’re trying to clean up your face so Ray doesn’t get beard burn on his thighs, do yourself a favor and use a trashcan like the rest of us.”

“One, that’s obscene and hearing you recount the coitus—” Michael snorts, because of course Ryan would use ‘coitus’ instead of something that’s not nearly as grandiose and yet still manage to pronounce it wrong “—Ray and I have is never something I _ever_ want to hear. Seriously, tell Ray that if he keeps talking about our sex life with you then there _won’t be_ a sex life in the first place. And, two, _come on_. Like you actually take the time to use a trashcan. I’m busy.”

“No, Ryan, I _don’t_ actually use a trashcan, because I’m not an animal and I don’t even have to shave in the first place. But I’d bet you twenty bucks that if I go ask Jack right now where he shaves he’ll tell me he does it over a trashcan, because that’s the only reasonable way to fuckin’ do it or you’ll end up with clogged pipes.”

“Okay, you’re on, but don’t come crying to me when you’re out twenty dollars.”

Michael shimmies on his back until he’s out from under the sink and then proceeds to wipe his dirty hands on his shirt (it’s already covered in gunk anyway, what's some more gross shit going to do?). He raises himself up and stops there for a second while he waits for the room to stop spinning, Michael thinking for a fraction of a second that there are two annoying Ryans in the room instead of just one. When the dizzy spell wanes he stands up and smiles.

“This,” he says, passing Ryan by to exit the bathroom and start for the door of the apartment, “is gonna be the easiest twenty bucks I’ve ever made, and I used to get cash from selling VHS rip-offs of Spice TV to my friends in middle school.”

Ryan sets the bucket down and shrugs, following him out through the door.

“Yeah, well. I’m coming too. I’ve got to hear this for myself.”

When Michael reaches Jack’s door, Ryan in tow and humming quietly to himself, he raises his fist to knock but it swings open before he can graze his knuckles on the door even once.

Gavin stands there, cheeks flushed and hair sticking up in disarray, his clothes rumpled in a way that an iron really can’t fix and wearing pants that are _inside out_ (how do you even put your pants on inside out, is the question Michael would like to know, because that has to take a special kind of negligence), with an incredibly satisfied look.

That is, until he seems to register Ryan and Michael standing before him, and then he abruptly begins to look like he’s just swallowed an entire bag of sour Warheads while simultaneously shitting his pants. And they’re inside out too, so try explaining _that_ stain.

It’s almost painfully awkward for a beat as they all look at each other and then — because Michael really wants to hurry up and get back to his own apartment, maybe get an ice pack for his head — he clears his throat loudly. He can practically feel Ryan leering behind him at Gavin.

“Looking a little flushed there, Gavin. Something got your tongue? Best to swallow it when you need to talk,” says Ryan, and, _oh_ , Michael definitely likes Ryan. He has no idea how he ever could’ve been terrified of him before, because anyone who makes a blowjob joke aimed to provoke Gavin is a winner in his book.

And, because Gavin is actually not as inept as he looks, he fixes Ryan with a scowl and snaps back, mocking Ryan’s accent in a way that’s almost clever if not for the fact that, oh yeah, his fucking pants are inside out (Michael will not get over this), “Know a lot about talking with your mouth full, Ryan? Has Ray been teaching you?”

Ryan squints and wrinkles his nose at Gavin who squints back, both of them looking like old men that have developed cataracts and are too stubborn to get the surgery for it. He can definitely see the two of them being the kind of old people who would sit out on their respective porches across from each other and bitch noisily about their nettlesome neighbor across the street, loud enough for the other to hear. They’d probably wave their canes at each other threateningly.

Ray and Jack are definitely the peacemakers. Speaking of which…  
  
Jack’s voice comes happily from somewhere behind Gavin, “Gavin? You’re still here? I thought you were leaving to go— Oh. Hey, Ryan. Michael. What’re y’all doin’ out here?”

Jack sidles up behind Gavin — who is still squinting at Ryan but now leaning back slightly against Jack’s chest — and nods to him. Michael rolls his eyes.

“Hey, Jack. Ryan and I—”

“Me,” Gavin cuts in, trying to correct him, and, _boy_ , does that quickly have him thinking about punching Gavin in the throat.

“No. Ryan and _I_ want to know if you shave over the sink or a bucket like a—”

“Ah-ah,” interjects Ryan, “don’t try and persuade him to either side.”

“Can I not talk? Can I not speak three words without being interrupted?”

Ryan shrugs and doesn’t offer up much more commentary other than a small, “Nah.”

And now it’s Michael’s turn to scowl at Ryan. Why did he even get out of bed this morning? Why does he have to be friends with such obnoxious people? Why does his head have to feel like someone is tightening a vice around it, a harsh pressure at his temples and behind his ears?

Jack heaves a sigh like he’s surrounded by idiots, which Michael wouldn’t exactly say is wrong if it weren’t for the fact that he’s one of the people Jack is currently surrounded by, so he’s slightly offended.

“How much is the bet?”

“Bet?” Michael asks faux innocently. “What bet? Who said anything about a bet?”

Jack isn’t having any of that.

“Michael,” he says calmly, leveling Michael with a stare that could wither the testicles of a yeti.

Which… what the fuck kind of analogy is that? Whatever, just roll with it, because apparently Michael is now thinking about yeti testicles and, _oh my God_ , he needs to get off that analogy and think about something else before his eyes burn out of his skull.

“Ugh, fine, _mom_. Ruin all the fun. Uh…” Michael pauses, confused. “I don’t remember exactly?”

“Don’t remember?” Ryan asks Michael incredulously. “It’s been like five minutes tops.” Then, turning to Jack, Ryan says, “Twenty dollars.”

Jack hums thoughtfully, which could really mean a lot of different things. Sometimes his hums are oh-wow-that’s-pretty-neat thoughtful, but other times they’re this-is-so-stupid-I’m-stalling-to-think-up-a-good-joke thoughtful. Jack shrugs and Michael is pretty sure it’s the very seldom this-means-absolutely-nothing-to-me thoughtful.

“For just my beard or—”

“Just your beard, asshole. Not the naughty bits.”

Jack purses his lips and goes silent.

“I shave in the shower,” Jack says after a moment of thinking, wrapping an arm around Gavin’s waist. “Now go away, I’ve got things to do.”

And then, with that prime example of a euphemism hanging out in the open, he unceremoniously drags Gavin back inside the apartment all the way and closes the door in Michael’s face.

“Wow, rude, for one thing,” Michael says to the door.

He looks towards Ryan and Ryan looks back, an impish grin sliding up his face.

“You know, technically, showers do use pipes to drain the water, so, technically, I was right and I won the bet.”

He jabs his finger at Ryan. “ _Technically_ , I will shove my fist so far up your ass that you can, _technically_ , feel how many fingers I’m holding up in the back of your throat if you don’t shut up.”

“Kinky.” Michael’s eyes shoot to where Ray is making his way towards them from the direction he must’ve came up the staircase. He’s shuffling through the mail in his hands and not even bothering to look up at them. “But, please, Michael. Ryan’s not ready to try his hand at fisting yet. Or my hand, for that matter.”

Ryan chokes on nothing and Michael snorts. He pats at Ryan’s back while Ryan tries to catch his breath and hide the fact that he’s blushing so much he could probably pass himself off as a ripe tomato in one of those Whole Foods Markets. No one would be any wiser.

“Yeah, well. I’m sure you guys could get Ryan there if you would just invest more of your money on lube and less on _Amiibos_. Lookin’ at you, Ray.”

“Done and done.”

Ray comes to a halt in front of where they’re both still standing outside of Jack’s door (which they should definitely move away from before they start hearing noises) and leans over to kiss Ryan on the cheek chastely. 

Ray, despite his mouth that runs so much it should try out for track, isn’t actually that big on PDA. Sure, he veers into highly explicit language about sexual acts all the time, to the point where Michael would say a good seventy percent of what Ray says is too much for any social setting, but that proves to just be all talk when it gets down to it.

Michael’s never even seen Ray and Ryan kiss on the mouth before, but he’s seen Ray sporting the hickeys to prove that they are, at least a little, sexually active. Not that he tries to think about their sex life that much or, you know, _at all_ , but it’s hard to not think about when practically everyone on this floor — except for Lindsay, Margaret, and Jack — talks like they’re in a badly scripted porno that’s trying too hard.

Which is completely different from the last apartment complex he lived at, because he was lucky if he even got any of his old neighbors to wave at him before. He’s definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Michael looks away from Ryan’s bright red face and his eyes zone in on the mail in Ray’s hands.

“Whatcha got there, Ray?”

“Huh?” Ray follows Michael’s line of sight down to the mess of mail. “Oh. Yeah. I got the mail? Pretty obvious here, dude.”

Michael can see the edge of a postcard sticking out from under a red cigarette pamphlet and there are three stamps with the design of a bird overlapping each other in the corner, which were the same stamps Geoff had used on the last postcard Michael got (the fact that he knows what stamps Geoff uses and what the corners of postcards tend to look like probably says a lot about where he is in life right now). 

It’s probably nothing, though, but he still squints and asks, “Is that one of my postcards?”

Ray looks down again, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow. “What?”

Michael knows it’s stupid and completely irrational, but the first thing he thinks isn’t something logical like Ray grabbing his mail for him or the mail getting mixed up, but that Ray deliberately took it.

Has he been taking random postcards from Geoff to him this entire time?

“That,” he says, pointing at the pile, voice gone stiff like his posture, “is one of my postcards.”

Ray lifts that mail up and then shuffles it around until the postcard is on top. Michael can see the handwriting when Ray flips it over and he just — he lunges for it, hand snapping at it before Ray can read more than one word of Geoff’s message for him. He pulls the card back to his chest protectively, making sure the side with the writing is facing him and not them.

“Whoa, dude. Calm down. I’m sure it just got put in with my mail on accident.”

Ray holds his hands up in supplication and Michael knows he should just calm down and stop acting like an obsessive weirdo, but. But… but it’s _Geoff_. If Ray were receiving messages from a person as vulnerable and open as Geoff, if he had to read every word and see every hesitant imprint of ink on the cards, Michael’s sure he would react the same.

But Michael looks at the both of them — Ray peering at him over the wire of his glasses with a face that’s split between worried and offended, while Ryan just looks like he’s trying to figure out what’s so important about the postcard — and realizes that, hey, maybe they’re not the enemies and that he really needs to think rationally for a second before he tries to go all Hulk on them.

Maybe he’s just having an off day. He’s been feeling weird ever since earlier that morning, just a few hours ago, something cloying at him and clinging to the back of his neck like a limpet. His body has been all cottony and fuzzy, headache digging at his temples duly, and sounds periodically muffling around him.

He drops his shoulders and lets out a nervous chuckle that sounds more forced that he means for it to be. His ears are burning like someone shoveled hot coals into both of his ear canals.

When he starts speaking his voice is a little rough around the edges and all kinds of sheepish.

“Jesus, Ray, sorry. I don’t… I’m just having an off day, you know? I didn’t mean to accuse you like that or anything. I know you’d never purposely take my mail.”

Michael offers up an apologetic smile, rubbing at the back of his neck in a hangdog manner.

Ray blinks once and then he’s giving Michael a reassuring smile, waving away his apology.

“It’s cool, dude. Though I’m a little surprised you’d think I’d do anything illegal like stealing mail. I’m an upstanding citizen of the U.S. and if the NSA is listening in right now, I definitely do not have an illegally downloaded copy of Watchmen on my computer and all of my music has been obtained on iTunes legally and without the use of any pirates.”

He winks at Michael for effect and it gets Michael to smile back even when there’s a twisting in his gut that’s trying to cloy its way up his esophagus and past his lips.

“Thanks, man,” he tells Ray, putting a hand out to the side and grabbing onto Ryan’s arm to hold himself steady when he finds himself tilting slightly to the side.

He can hear a muffled noise intoning in his head, a deep buzzing, and it takes him a long second to realize that it’s just Ryan talking.

“—really hot. Are you okay? Did you hear me?”

Michael shakes his head, looking from Ryan to Ray quickly.

There’s a high-pitched ringing in his ears that is steadily getting louder and somehow manages to amplify the drowsiness he feels, everything coming in slow around him even when he knows it’s not really slow. And then everything is too fast and coming in sharp bursts that are almost too much, the faint noise of Ray’s shoe scuffing on the carpet as he takes a step towards Michael sounding like an explosion going off, and Michael thinks for a second that he’s dreaming, because everything is losing color and starting to not feel as real. He’s so disoriented that he wants to just lay down on the floor and screw his eyes up tight to block out the light that’s killing his eyes.

He drops his mail to the ground to clutch at his stomach as casually as he can manage when the pain there stutters out two quick jolts that feel like he's been shocked.

“No, I think I’m about to—”

Michael passes out and the last thing he hears before crumbling to the ground is Ray yelling for Ryan to go start the car.

•••

 **Unread postcard #1**  
**Franklin, PA**  
**June 27th, 2015**

_Please send my body down the river if I ever say that diner coffee at five in the morning is good. It’s like I’m drinking charcoal that’s been soaked in sugar and vanilla creamer. I miss my French press. That was some damn good coffee. Super smooth and not too heavy on the tongue... or maybe I miss my coffee grinder more. Kyocera. It sounds like a prehistoric creature, right? Totally badass. Anyway, I’m tired and all I’ve got is this bad coffee and these packets of sugar to keep me up. I need a couple to try pulling a stick up right now to help my eyes stay open. I swear they’ve never felt any heavier. Samuel L. Jackson, where are you? G._

_P.S. I can’t believe I’m still here. My car broke down and I’m having it fixed right now. Just my fuckin _’_ luck, right? I have to pick it up soon. Really considering a motorcycle right about now._

_P.P.S. Yesterday was such a great day. Never seen more rainbow flags in my life. My chances of being married have just doubled, so fuck you, Alabama. Hope you’re happy too, New Jersey._

_P.P.P.S. It’s just like Macklemore said._

•••

 **Unread postcard #2**  
**Gowanda, NY**  
**June 28th, 2015**

_Car: fixed. Guitar: all strings accounted for. Hair: longer than dicks, but no time to cut it or shave until I hit Vermont. Shoes: worn out and verging on being nothing more than a slab of fabric over the arch of my foot. So I’m writing this before stopping into a place called Soles Unlimited. Sounds like another weird witch cult thing with that homophone, but I’m gonna risk it. Let’s hope no one takes my soul while I’m in there. Geoff._

_P.S. Have you noticed that Quentin Tarantino totally has a foot fetish?_

_P.P.S. Just got out of the store and I'm still OK. Very family orientated and no one was flying on brooms or turning anyone into a frog. Got some Ranger boots for the snow since I’m heading further and further up north. Also bought some nice socks, very cool._

•••

 **Unread postcard #3**  
**Cuba, NY**  
**July 1st, 2015**

_There are so many cow murals and there _’s_ so much cheese here. I’m so glad I’m not lactose intolerant, because I’m pretty sure the people here live solely off of dairy. No matter how unbecoming that is of this place, though, I’ve just discovered the magnificence of vodka and pomegranate thanks to a recently married couple here. It’s fucking delicious and you should try it, New Jersey. So props to Darlene and Hibaq from Murdock’s Bar and Grill. 40 years-old now and this old dog’s still learning new tricks. G._

•••

 **Unread postcard #4**  
**Ghent, NY**  
**July 2nd, 2015**

_Jesus Christ, I never want to come to this shithole again. I need a drink. Or twenty. Just ply me full of liquor, thanks. Geoff._

_P.S. Do you still read these? Did you ever?_

•••

“If you don’t hand me that remote, Meg, I will tell Lindsay all about what you did to Scraggles,” Michael taunts with a surprising amount of intimidation for someone who is lying flat on his back with soup stains on his shirt and sweat gathered at his temples.

He’s seen better days.

“You wouldn’t fucking dare,” Meg says back, but there’s a reproachfulness around the edges of her mouth like she knows Michael will without even a shred mercy.

“You wanna bet?”

She groans but hands the remote over anyway.

“You’re so lucky we’ve still got to be careful about rattling your brain, because if you didn’t have a concussion the other day I would’ve just whapped you with a rolled up newspaper for being such a dickhead just then.”

“Okay, one, I’m not a dog. And, two, what about my fever? I’m still all sick and defenseless here. You’d really hurt someone who’s relying on you to play nurse for them?”

She lets out a derisive noise, huffs an, “Oh, please,” under her breath, and rolls her eyes.

She begins to grab used tissues off of the coffee table, bending at the waist to get the wayward ones that have strayed and fell to the floor, and puts them in the small trash bin in her hands, mouth moving wordlessly to herself as she does it.

Michael’s eyes follow her path around the living room lethargically, watching as she bumps into the arm of the couch and curses at every inanimate object that’s ever wronged her. She gives a kick for good measure to the leg of the couch and it jostles Michael’s neck, but he doesn’t complain since he figures he owes her.

She’s been busying herself with picking up after him ever since he came back from the hospital that morning. He himself hasn’t been cleaning up since he’s been too weak to do much else other than roll around on the couch and whine about how uncomfortable he is. He’d be in his bedroom, except there’s no TV in there, thus no entertainment, and that just won’t do for him.

Meg was thrilled about it because she’s filled to the brim with hate or something and has tried to persuade him into moving into the bedroom instead. But, because Michael isn’t an idiot, he realizes that no matter how much “better it will be for his recovery” in the long run, there’s no point in recovering if he misses the early Friday morning soap operas.

Seriously, what if Tulio really is Miguel’s secret boyfriend who is also coincidentally Miguel’s sister’s ex-husband? He can’t miss that big reveal!

“Okay, don’t move now. I’m going to go pick up your mail and then I’ll be back. We’ve all just been letting it pile up in your mailbox since you… well.” Meg looks away awkwardly, setting the bin down and pushing her hair out of her face. “We know that you don’t like anyone touching your mail.”

He coughs awkwardly and Michael’s pretty sure that even if he didn’t have a fever his face would be hot.

“Thanks, Meg. You know you guys don’t have to do this, right? They let me out of the hospital for a reason and I can take care of myself,” he says, but he knows it’s falling on deaf ears. It was worth a shot, though.

Meg doesn’t even pretend to consider it, responding almost immediately with, “Nice try, but if we can learn anything from this incident, your version of taking care of yourself is ignoring all of your symptoms until you pass out in the middle of the hallway, so.”

Meg shrugs and leaves it at that. She reaches out to ruffle his hair, fingers massaging his head for a few seconds, and Michael presses up into the touch like a cat, eyes closing as if by reflex. She pulls her hand away (Michael totally doesn’t make a pathetically needy noise and try and chase her comforting touch) and heads over to the door.

“I’ll bring your mail up and then give you some space, but Jack will be over in ten after that.” She glances at the watch on her wrist. “Gav and Rye are stopping by later too, though I don’t know if Gav is going to actually show up. But Ryan will be here without a doubt. I texted him and he promised me he would.”

He nods, makes a comment about Gavin’s lack of loyalty to anything other than his secret shrine dedicated to Jack that may or may not exist, and waits until she waves and closes the door behind her to get up. He hobbles over to the bedroom and changes clothes sluggishly, fever medicine making his limbs feel heavier than they really are, and then goes to brush his teeth because his mouth still feels gross from when he napped on the car ride home from the hospital.

He would have been back from the hospital sooner if it weren’t for Gavin, who happened to have a doctor friend at the hospital that he bribed into suggesting to Michael that he stay until his fever dropped and his headaches stopped. Michael would’ve just shook off the suggestion if he would’ve been alone, but Gavin, the smart little shit, managed to get the doctor friend to suggest Michael stay longer when Margaret was in the room and, really, if Margaret would’ve heard Michael say that he didn’t give a damn and ask for the release papers he would’ve been in some deep shit.

Margaret is not one to treat matters of health lightly, which is probably why she was so upset with Michael for not going straight to the hospital right after he tripped down the stairs in the first place. But he has always been one to wait until the last minute to deal with anything, especially when it comes to physical health.

By the time he’s done brushing his teeth and has found his way back into the living room, Meg’s already came and gone, judging by the heart shaped sticky note on the door of the bathroom. He pulls it off of the door to read it, but it’s blank except for a small, pixelated heart drawn in the middle. He sticks it back on the door and supposes he’ll keep it there for now.

When he moves back into the living room he notes that there is now a stacked up pile of mail haphazardly balanced on the edge of his coffee table and he pushes it away from the edge. He fingers his way through the envelopes, just giving them quick cursory glances, and snags up all of the postcards he sees; there are four in total with varying amounts of space taken up with Geoff’s words.

He settles back on the couch and reads the postcards in order, starting from the twenty-seventh of June and ending with July second — today is only the third, a day from the last postcard.

He stares at his hands for a long time after he’s done reading them, eyes losing focus and turning his apartment into a mess of pale splotches. Everything is different, suddenly, as he’s struck with a lingering feeling from Geoff’s postcards that he can’t seem to shake no matter how much he tries. And he tries really hard, considering the explicit way it paints the picture of something painful over his lungs, something that just hurts him somewhere deep in his chest that he thinks is more in his head than a physical pain.

It’s the impression of a feeling that Michael is having trouble parsing, something that makes him ache. A dull, almost there but not really, twinge right there against his ribs; something that thrums there and leaves him more than a little disorientated and lost. A sort of longing, but for what in particular Michael’s not quite sure, and he doesn’t think Geoff knows either if he’s still sending Michael postcards. It feels like how Michael felt after a few days of living on his own after living in the same space with the same person for years — the comfort in finally being home, of having a home to call his that really felt like it in the first place, leaving him all at once — that deserted and shook up feeling that he still doesn’t quite know how to deal with.

Everything that Michael has learned about Geoff through the postcards he’s sent collating together all at once and leaves Michael with nothing more than one simple feeling, one word that just makes  _sense_ , really, because it just explains everything.

Lonely.

Geoff is lonely.

He doesn’t know why it’s taken him so long — months of reading Geoff’s cards — to realize it, but Michael thinks Geoff might be the loneliest person he knows.

It’s been staring Michael dead in the face this entire time, but it’s only just now really hitting home how much Geoff must feel that ache for someone to notice him, to really give a shit about how he’s doing. How everything in Geoff must be calling out for just one person who will listen to him, who will try and understand him. Just _something_ , for the universe to just let him catch a break for once.

Michael carefully cradles the postcards to his chest and untucks his legs from under himself, moving into the kitchen. When the calendar is adequately marked up with the dates from the cards and the postcards themselves are tucked into their designated basket, Michael lays back down on the couch and just stares at the wall.

Five minutes later, Jack lets himself in and immediately attempts to coerce Michael into letting him make him chicken soup while rambling about ways to try and break his fever.

Michael doesn’t stop thinking about Geoff the entire time.

He wishes he could reply back. Say, _yes, of course I still read your postcards_. Say, _yes, I’ve been reading them since the beginning and I wait for them every day_. Admit, maybe, that he’s closer to Geoff than anyone else in his life even though he’s spoken more to the part-time mime that frequents the drugstore by his apartment than Geoff.

Michael worries away at his bottom lip, only halfway paying attention to Jack’s mothering, and thinks about what he’d say to Geoff if he could meet him. What could he say to try and get Geoff to understand that he’s definitely not alone, at least not with Michael here in New Jersey, reading each postcard like they’re everything to him? 

Michael’s never been good with words, always someone who would rather show than tell, but it’s not like he’s ever met Geoff in the first place and even in the imaginary world he lives in in his head he still can’t put a real face to Geoff’s name. No imaginary figure he comes up with seems right, fits the picture of Geoff’s personality Michael’s come up with through all of the postcards he’s been sent.

So he can’t show Geoff shit.

Christ, Michael feels like a fucking idiot. An _obsessed_ and _deluded_ idiot carrying some kind of fucked up torch for a guy who’s no better than a figment of his imagination. And—

Michael pauses in his head, repeating what he just thought to himself.

A torch? He’s carrying a torch? For _Geoff_?

It takes a beat, his entire body slackening as he considers it. He wets his lips, distantly aware that Jack is now fussing around in the kitchen, whistling a happy tune quietly under his breath.

But that really is what this is, right? Some kind of a _thing_ between him and — well… basically just between him and himself. Geoff really is no better than an imaginary friend, but clearly an imaginary friend that must have a fucking great imaginary personality, because how does this even happen? How does a person develop any kind of crush (crush feels like the wrong term, but that’s what it is) on someone they don’t even know?

Celebrities, yeah, okay. That makes sense, because at least you can see celebrities and you can watch them in movies or crack jokes during interviews. But it’s like… he’s never even seen Geoff. He knows virtually nothing about him as a person other than what little information Geoff has shared via his postcards (which isn’t much, because Geoff seems to talk more about trivial things than anything with substance most of the time, unless he’s drunk or feeling especially melancholy).

Plus, it’s like… it’s not like Geoff is his _friend_ or anything — or, at least, there’s no way Geoff would give Michael that sobriquet when Geoff has never even got a postcard back from him (not that Michael could send one in the first place). Geoff probably doesn’t even give two shits about the person he’s sending his cards to. He’s probably just spouting off a bunch of thoughtless shit like you would when you’re drunk at a club and can’t seem to get over how pretty the person you’re dancing with is.

Fuck, Michael thinks with a sudden amount of clarity, is he supposed to be the underpaid bartender that nods and hums in agreement while someone drunk off their ass goes on and on about their shitty life? Is he that guy now?

 _Yes_ , he answers himself, he is. He _totally_ is.

But… but that doesn’t stop him from caring about Geoff for some reason. That doesn’t stop him from wondering, late at night when he’s brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed, if Geoff is sleeping in a warm motel with free wifi, a leaky barn full of hay and horses, or laying out under the stars in that same moment Michael is standing in his bathroom, mouth foamy with toothpaste as he checks out his reflection in the mirror.

Despite the lack of an actually tangible connection between him and Geoff, Michael hasn’t stopped thinking about Geoff since he started getting the postcards; just two weeks ago he was out at the store picking up the ingredients for the roast Margaret was going to make when he’d heard Fleetwood Mac start playing on the store’s intercom and he laughed, loud and sudden in the middle of the aisle, and thought to himself, _“I’m going to be indicted into a witch cult and Geoff isn’t even around to see it.”_

So, sure, maybe he’s a stranger to Geoff, but Michael… Michael is pretty damn sure that Geoff is the one person in the world that Michael wouldn’t mind talking to late into the night and clear into the morning.

So how do you make someone who is lonely not feel lonely anymore? What words could someone who is all but a complete stranger to a person who is lonely offer that would mean anything to them in the first place?

Michael groans and rolls over on the couch, burying his head in the pillow he’d been laying on sullenly. Jack makes a surprised noise from where he’s sitting on the coffee table, the spoon that used to hold soup now lying empty on the floor from where Michael had knocked it out of Jack’s hand as he had flipped over.

“Someone’s upset for no reason,” Jack says wittingly and Michael can’t even be bothered to reply back, just makes another unhappy noise and digs his face further into the pillow, curling into himself.

Figures that the first person Michael would develop a thing for after breaking up from a long term relationship is someone he’s never even met. And, because his life is utter shit and he must’ve been a terrible person in a past life, of course he realizes he’s got a crush on Geoff when he’s not even alone to wallow and pout about his shit luck. (Never mind the fact that he’s still sick, fever slowly leaving him but stomach still a mess — which thinking about Geoff isn’t really helping, what with his dumb, middle school crush and everything — and was recently concussed.)

Fuck everything.

•••

 **Lowville, NY**  
**July 6th, 2015**

_A guy started chatting me up at a bar and offered me a thousand dollars to have a threesome with him and his boyfriend. He showed me a picture of him and everything, assuring me that they both weren’t serial killers or anything. He also gave me his number. I may or may not be a thousand dollars richer and less stressed than I’ve been in months — allegedly. Geoff._

•••

**Norwood, NY**  
**July 8th, 2015**

_Did you know that two of the four best songs ever made are Minutemen songs? I’m not one to lie either, so that’s how you know it’s the bonafide truth. Did you also know that the single best music video (for a myriad of reasons, most related to Rihanna) is Run This Town? Disagree? Tough. Geoff is always right. Seriously, though: I can’t get Run This Town out of my head. I’m stuck in New York traffic (which is killer, but nothing compared to the traffic in Austin, though) and it’s playing in a loop in my head. Trying to listen to other songs on the radio isn’t working, so I’ve resorted to singing it at the top of my lungs to yell it out of my head._

_Are all those stares from the cars around me directed at me? I’m getting performance anxiety. Geoff._

_P.S. Victory's within the mile, almost there, don't give up now (I can’t sing the ‘what’s up’s here, but it’d be perfect if I had a slew of hot, talented background singers to match my hot, talented singing; I’ve got the voice of a bordering on alcoholic angel). Only thing that's on my mind, is who's gonna run this town tonight._

•••

 **Ellenburg Depot, NY**  
**July 9th, 2015**

_Had to sleep in my car all last night since it started raining too hard for me to camp on the side of the road like normal (which is always an exercise in paranoia. I’m still emotionally bruised from waking up next to that snake fuck in New Mexico). It was fuckin’ cool, though — the storm, not the whole sleeping-in-a-cramped-car thing. And I’ll be the first to admit that my car is an old, rusty piece of shit, but the sound of the rain hitting the vinyl roof sounded like a progressive theater troupe was staging an impromptu showing of “Stomp” on top of the car. It was… surprisingly calming, actually. Nice._

_Until the lightning hit a couple of yards away from my car and I could hear the thunder explode around me. I swear it was straight out of a movie. I’m pretty sure that Michael Bay would have been impressed. I heard he’s in talks to direct the sequel. G._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha, I hope none of you got worried this would take an angst-y turn! This fic is solely fluff and good times (though a concussion on top of the flu definitely isn't _anyone's_ version of a good time), so no worries. ♥ you! xx


	6. Chapter 6

**Pittsburgh, PA**  
**July 13th, 2015**

_You know what I just realized, New Jersey? I never hit Montana. I have a friend up in Montana and if I didn’t visit her up there while I’m on this cross-country road trip and she found out about it? Shit, dude. She’d cut my balls off with her chainsaw and then fashion them into a necklace for me to wear around like they’re a pair of my best pearls… which they kind of would be — my balls are glorious, thanks. I definitely have to go. Even if it’s in the complete opposite way of where I’m going, I’ve got to go back. I’m going to try and get there and back in less than two months. Let’s see if I have it in me, New Jersey. G._

_P.S. Just passed by a mattress that was out on the curb with the phrase “NOTHING REALLY MATTRESS” written into it. Love Pittsburgh, shame I couldn’t stay longer._

•••

 **Kalamazoo, MI**  
**July 17th, 2015**

_So I may have went out of my way to hit this place, but… come on… Kalamazoo? Of course I’m going to take a detour to get here. And, yes, I’m still on a mission to get to Montana, but it’s not like it has to be a fast mission. Not that any of this is fast. I could very easily just drive there in a handful of hours instead of taking days to get there, but that’s just not the way you take a cross-country trip. You’ve got to experience it. You have to sleep out under a copse of trees and dig the change out of the bottom of your pockets to pay for a bag of chips. You’ve got to lose a jacket and know you’ll never get it back because it’s a state behind. You’ve got to forget about things like taking a shower every day and getting a good night’s sleep. You’ve got to get dirty, let your hair grow so long that you cut it off yourself and end up looking like the ugly cousin of the Chia Pet. You’re not road tripping right if you haven’t worn out the soles of your favorite pair of shoes and wanted to take the entire road trip back — that is until you find the same pair of shoes at a dollar store in Colorado. You’ve got to let go. Be free, y’know? Live a little. Is that the most hippie thing I’ve ever said? I’m pretty sure it is. Oh God, am I becoming a hippie? Christ almighty. G._

•••

 **Valparaiso, IN**  
**July 20th, 2015**

_The names of these places just keep getting weirder and weirder. None of the locals I’ve asked so far can tell me how to pronounce this place. Or maybe they’re just trying to get me to leave them alone by saying no. Do I have something in my teeth? Geoff._

_P.S. Val. Par. Ai? Like an E sound? Val-par-ee-so? That sounds right, right? OK I need to just get some rest, because I’m clearly thinking too hard about this._

•••

The dawn is only just breaking over the shoddy outline of the compact and almost obnoxiously drab corporate building just outside of Michael’s bedroom window when he climbs through it and settles out on the fire escape, letting his legs dangle down from in between the rickety safety bars so that he can swing them back and forth, the soles of his flip-flops hanging precariously from his feet like they’ll fall at the drop of a hat. He tightens his toes around the straps of each flip-flop when the wind picks, still cool enough from the night that Michael shivers slightly. It’s reflectively quiet outside, the uneasy creak of the metal he’s perched on the only sound he can pick up over the breeze.

There’s a slight fog hanging low enough in the air that it clings to the tarmac, marking the alley below him as a hazy display of water suspension; something that used to scare Michael when he was younger after he watched _The Fog_ with his brothers when he was barely seven-and-a-half because he didn’t want to be left out of things like movie nights, even if he always hated the movies they picked out.

Now, though, the fog just makes him miss the way mist would rise over Woodbridge Creek at dawn — the long tributary that cut off from Arthur Kill (as his mom called it, but his grandfather still insisted was called the Staten Island Sound) and went up behind his grandfather’s house in Port Reading. It was the creek he got to know well during his summer break before tenth grade when he would spend hours browning out in the sun whilst futilely trying to catch crayfish with minnow traps, his jeans folded up to just below his knees and his fingers gone all wrinkled and pruned by the time he was called inside for supper.

It’s so early that even the birds that normally wake him up before his alarm or his body’s natural clock does are still sleeping, tucked away into their nests and the shaded crooks of awnings that act vicariously as a nest until morning. Sleeping like the dead. Just like how Michael can’t, but sure wishes he could.

He should absolutely be asleep, because even if he’s the type of person who wakes up with the birds to do yoga and act out scenes from _Risky Business_ while munching on granola bars and getting ready for work, it’s still too early for anything other than sleep. His clock, when he’d blearily stumbled over to it to get a one-eyed look at it after tossing and turning himself awake, had blinked a too bright _5:14 a.m._ back at him. He knew he should go back to sleep, tried lying wrapped up in his sheets and counting sheep futilely, but couldn’t stand lying in bed for more than five minutes before he clambered up and had to relieve his bladder. When he came back to the bedroom he took one look at his bed and then slipped on his flip-flops and came out onto the fire escape.

It’s official, Michael thinks as he picks rust from one of the bars and watches it slip between his fingers and float on the wind to the pavement below. He is now twenty-eight.

He drums his fingers over the bars, tapping out a rhythm similar or maybe the same as the tune he heard Ryan whistling the other day.

His mom will call him in a few hours to wish him a happy birthday and ask him if he’s still coming to the family reunion they’ll be holding on the east side of Pottersville (the place his mom moved after the divorce, though his dad still lives in the old family home on the upper north side of Woodbridge) next weekend, up by the old cottage he stayed at with his brothers for a week straight as his brothers’ way of congratulating him after he graduated high school. His dad won’t call, but he’ll text him almost right after his mom gets off of the phone with him as if he was waiting for an okay from the universe to interact with him without somehow interrupting his time with his mom, because somehow his parents still manage to orbit around him and his brothers without ever seeming to interact. His brothers will wait until the last minute to call like they always do, apologizing for calling so late, but then rattling off all of the things they were doing that kept them from calling until then.

His friends from high school will send him their well-wishes over his social media accounts, some might even text him. His ex will send him a card with an abundance of smiley faces and exclamation points just like she did when his mother’s birthday passed a few months ago, because she wants them to be friends and they are so he’ll text her back to thank her — he won’t call because her voice still makes him ache, though less from love and more from remorse.

He doesn’t know exactly what his floormates will do, if any of them remembered his birthday or if they even knew in the first place (he thinks Meg is the only one he’s mentioned it to, during his first month at the complex). He wouldn’t mind either way, could go for a quiet day to himself if they don’t know (because if they did Michael knows for a fact they’d have something planned in celebration — Meg and Margaret love throwing celebratory parties and even rope Ryan into it on occasion, as he’s their favorite decorator/ _‘hold this until I need it’_ er).

He rubs his hands together, trying to get enough friction in them that they heat up and melt away the cold that’s overtaking his fingertips. It’s not cold enough for him to regret not pulling a shirt on before he came out but it’s getting there. He tucks his fingers under his armpits, sighing slightly at the warmth there, and kicks his feet back and forth a little harder, trying to keep his bones from letting the cold settle in and really get to him.

He doesn’t want to have to go back inside and look away from the way dawn is splintering the sky in half, the dark being split up by saturated blues and looking more like a bona fide Georgia O'Keeffe painting than something real, something substantial and actually there but still not reachable, nothing that Michael can so much as graze his fingers against. One of his old teachers told him that the reason the sky was blue — or any color, for that matter — was because of molecules scattering light. Michael doesn't know what to do with that, what to think of molecules and matter and atoms and things that he can’t comprehend all the way, so he just nods along when people try explaining these things to him, but he still doesn’t get it.

_Twenty-eight._

Twenty-eight years of being here, still in New Jersey, still a few cities over from his dad and a few more cities over from his mom, who talks to him every other week and still invites him out to family reunions.

He’s turned twenty-eight over night and nothing’s changed. He’s not wiser now, not suddenly sure of where he’s at or where he’s going in life, not more of an adult and less of a kid, not hardened by life, not brazen enough to take huge risks, not brave enough to put himself out there without worrying about the ineffable ways he could fuck up. He isn’t anything other than exactly what he was just a little over five hours ago.

He’s not different. He feels like maybe he should be, like this should be some life-altering moment as he sits outside and watches the fog clear itself up and the sky get brighter. Like maybe this is a turning point, or that it at least has the potential to be if Michael let it. If he took that metaphorical leap and let things change, let himself grow instead of being that same eighteen-year-old boy in high school who isolated himself for a week straight while panicking about how no one cared about him anymore; how everyone was distant and made him think — a little overly dramatic and foolishly — that they wouldn’t even remember him if he just disappeared. All because his best friend at the time hadn’t replied to any of his IMs for a day or two.

The wind stops blowing and he pushes his curls back from irritating his eyes. He should’ve brought out a beanie to keep his hair back and the tips of his ears warm.

His friends now, though, always text back and they have reasons for why they’re busy that don’t feel like they just don’t want to have to hang out with him, like he’s being excluded. They don’t make him feel like he’s too clingy or that he needs to have their attention at all times to know he’s loved. His heart has always been a little weaker than normal, is what his mom’s always said about him, so he needs reassurance that people value him more often than most, compliments his bastion of indemnity.

He knows that all of his floormates do. He knows they love him and that they care about him, that they try to talk to him whenever they can. He’s lucky, really, that this floor’s folkways seem to be that of socialization and acceptance, a surety that they’ll always have time for him if he really needs it.

He strokes his jaw lightly, trailing his fingers up until he can twist a loose curl around his index finger.

He thinks that’s what he is for Geoff, his address the solid touchstone Geoff needs to remind himself that someone out there is listening to him when it seems like no one else will; the home plate that he can come back to when the isolation from real personal connections gets too heavy, when his lungs feel too small for all of the deep breaths he needs to take to make it through to the next state.

Geoff does that for him too — without him knowing, of course. His postcards are a constant tether to him, something that assure Michael that he’ll always have this, these postcards from Geoff, when everything else fails. When nothing else can pull him out of his thoughts and he finds himself waning away from people, Geoff’s postcards are there, in his apartment and stuck up on his fridge like the latest postcard is the first thing he wants to see when he’s grumpily trying to find something for breakfast. His rigid back bends, his shoulders drop, and his cheeks flush, because that’s what the postcards always do — they make him happy, they reassure him, they get him smiling like a poor schmuck who says “yes, dear” to everything.

The postcards were a coping mechanism at first, a way for him to escape his head and try and forget about the break up. They were everything to him, really. They helped and they still do now, but for different reasons — they help him cool off when he forgets to take the lasagna out in time and the whole apartment piles out while the fire alarm goes off and Hullum glares at him like he could make Michael burst into flame just by staring; they’re there when he’s drunk by himself and using the kitchen sink to wash the acrid taste from his mouth; they’re there when he stubs his toe on the island and has to bite onto his knuckle to keep from screaming bloody murder and end up scaring everyone on the floor.

They still work for him, even when he’s no longer nursing a broken heart with junk food and any alcohol he can get his greedy hands on, but it’s different than before. They work in a different way.

Now the postcards aren’t what he’s relying on to get him through the days when they get too hard. It’s Geoff. It’s always been Geoff, really, but now it’s more about Geoff than the derivative source of adventure he gets from Geoff’s postcards. He wants to know about how Geoff is feeling now instead of what he’s been doing, he wants to hear about how Geoff acted as a teenager and he wants to know if that friend he mentioned was really named Mingus or if that was just a nickname Geoff gave them because of some inside joke that Michael wasn’t privy to. He wants that, too. The inside jokes and all of the things Michael doesn’t already know.

But that’s not really fair either, because he _does_ want to hear everything that Geoff has to say, that he has to offer, but he wants to know about the heavy-laden things first; like why he never talks about his family. Why he is constantly hanging around bars. What did he send in that first postcard when he was drunk and more than likely needed someone to talk to — was he just spewing out a bunch of drunk nonsense like how Gavin does when he’s drunk? Was he confessing all of the wrongs he’d done as if to a priest? Was he drunk because he wanted to numb the loneliness for at least a few dazed hours? Why?

Why, why, why.

He wants to understand Geoff, to be able to finish the thoughts Geoff doesn’t manage to complete in his postcards as if he’s known Geoff for years. He wants that connection, that knowledge that he gets Geoff better than he gets his own self. He wants to know the ins-and-outs of Geoff’s personality, so he can always pick up when Geoff is pensive, upset, furious, calm, bored, complacent, happy — _everything._  God, he wants everything and anything. He’ll take the scraps offered to him, but when that’s not enough anymore he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

He’s scared of change and all the big things that come with growing up. He’s scared of his feelings for Geoff too, or the person he makes Geoff out to be in his head, at least. He’s scared of a lot of things that he figures that maybe he shouldn’t be. Maybe he needs to move on from some things, try to forget why they ever scared him in the first place.

So that’s why, as he’s sitting out on the fire escape outside of his bedroom at five in the morning, he pulls his phone from the pocket of his sweatpants and sends Meg a simple text accepting something she’s been trying to get him to do for the past two weeks, because she thinks he should be ready by now, that he should move on — but she wants him to move on from the wrong person, because she doesn’t know about the one that his thoughts have been orbiting for the past few months.

 **To: Megara**  
_Okay, set me up on this blind date then but make sure it's no one creepy._

His phone buzzes back five minutes later and Michael’s not surprised that Meg is willing to text him about this even at such an ungodly hour. He can perfectly envision her squinting against the brightness of her phone while laying in bed, cooing and shushing Lindsay when she starts to grumble about the light, and texting Michael excitedly all at the same time. Meg lives for matchmaking, Michael has learned from all of the stories Meg tells him about people from her yoga class that she’s gotten together.

 **From: Megara**  
_!!!_  
_I’m on it birthday boy! Absolutely no creepers!_  
_Get some sleep before ur surprise party later_

 **To: Megara**  
_I have a surprise birthday party later?_  
_And you aren’t supposed to tell me about the surprise before it happens._  
_Now it’s not a surprise anymore._

 **From: Megara**  
_Go 2 sleep!!!_

Michael sighs, but climbs back into his room and tries to fall asleep again all the same. When he does eventually nod off he doesn’t dream about anything, and the next few hours pass in the blink of an eye. He wakes to find that Gavin is banging on his door and shouting about how Margaret wants the cake done by noon and that means Michael has to be awake _now_.

Michael can’t say that he’s thrown-off by the fact that Margaret is going to rope him into helping bake his own surprise birthday cake, because he fully expected it. Nothing is surprising to him anymore with these people.

He pulls open his door to let Gavin in and doesn’t even realize he’s wearing a fond smile until Gavin points it out with a remark about him always being too “bloody chipper” in the mornings.

•••

 **Minneapolis, MN**  
**July 29th, 2015**

_Minnesota is a place with a metric fuckton of lakes, is what I’ve learned by passing through here instead of South Dakota, and I’m not sure I’m fine with that. I haven’t been a fan of lakes since I saw that oil lake catch on fire while stationed in Kuwait. Sure, there’s a difference between real lakes and oil lakes, but that didn’t stop me from selling my surfboard after getting back from the army. But, hey, I wanted to visit Minneapolis, so here I am. It’s breathtaking. Seriously, talk about a place that’s thriving. I’m going to try my hand at a little poker if I can charm my way into this hotel casino. Wish me luck, NJ. G._

_P.S. Ditched poker and ended up sleeping on the softest fucking sheets this ass has ever felt thanks to a hot older lady who was super into me and kept asking if I wanted to see the inside of her suite. Woof._

•••

 **Fort Peck, MT**  
**August 4th, 2015**

_Griffon, the friend I mentioned before, was thrilled to see me again. We’re old friends — used to go to University of South Carolina together before mom lost her job and I had to drop out and move back to Alabama to help take care of bills and stuff, and then longer after she got sick — but we’re still close. We don’t talk much, what with her actually making something of her life and becoming a set designer and me not becoming anything. She’s busy a lot in the summer, but she carved out some time for me and she wants to take me down to the Summer Theatre and show me off to her friends. They’ve also got a show going tonight, but I’m not sure if I’ll stay the night or not. I might. It’s nice to talk to someone who knows me again. G._

_P.S. I stayed. Couldn’t sleep in the guest room and had to get out of the house, so I’m out back now. You should see the stars out here. There aren’t many lights so you can see so much more here than anywhere else. It makes you feel small, seeing how many stars there really are. You’re just a mote of forgettable dust on a planet that’s millions and billions of people mean nothing in comparison to the millions and billions of other solar systems out there in the intangible vastness of space. I haven’t felt this out of place since I was in the army._

•••

 **Fargo, ND**  
**August 10th, 2015**

_Ever seen the movie Fargo? Pretty good. I’ve always been a fan of it. I’m tired and can’t think of anything else to send, but wanted to send a postcard from here. This place isn’t nearly as cool as the movie Fargo, but it’s quiet. Nothing quite as good as a place where you hear nothing but the wind against your car and someone’s wind chimes striking against each other in the distance._

_I’ve been thinking about going home again. Geoff._

•••

 **Normal, IL**  
**August 16th, 2015**

_My creative partner, Jack Daniels, is trying to get me to invest in buying a shirt from this thrift store. I have approximately two dollars in change left for spending money and this shirt I’ve been eyeing up in this store is twelve. So how does one take two dollars and go up to twelve? Interesting that you should ask: by being a funny motherfucker. Let’s go make some money. Geoff._

_P.S. ‘Bout to do it._

_P.P.S. Did it. You’re lookin’ at the proud owner of a “Normal, Illinois” shirt now. The next time I want to buy something I’ll have to get a part-time job. I’ll save that for when I’m up north._

•••

 **Morgantown, WV**  
**August 25th, 2015**

_Came upon a wall here that was either abstract art or the murder scene of your friendly neighborhood clown. So many bright colors. Wish I had a camera to show you what it looked like. Dug out the guitar from the trunk of my car and started playing it on the sidewalk since I can’t find a radio station that plays good music anymore. But I must look like I’m homeless right now, because the people walking by put money down by my feet. How many homeless people do you know that have obnoxiously cheesy “Normal, Illinois” shirts? But I guess they’re not wrong, I am kind of homeless right now. Except it was entirely my intention by doing this that I wouldn’t be tied down to a home, so it’s not like I’m homeless on accident. Seems like I’ve managed to become like the hobo I met months ago, minus the awesome amount of symbols he had tucked in his brain. Dude could practically tell me a story with all of those hobo symbols._

_So I now have twenty-two dollars in spending money thanks to the deep pockets of the people from Morgantown. Might buy some earplugs to help me sleep tonight, since I haven’t slept in a few days. Geoff._

•••

 **Philadelphia, PA**  
**September 10th, 2015**

_All right, New Jersey. Where were we again? Headed up north, right? Let’s get this road trip back on course. But, before that, you know any good Irish pubs in Philadelphia? Geoff._

_P.S. Is it always sunny here or what? This place is bright as dicks._

•••

When Michael quietly tiptoes his way up the steps and sees no one out in the hallway as he crests the stairwell, he lets out a deep, chest heaving sigh of relief. He drops his shoulders from where they’ve steadily climbed up to his ears and tucks the mail he grabbed before ambling up to his apartment door under his arm.

It’s a quarter until ten in the morning and for once he’s relieved that everyone — including himself, but he’s on vacation — has to be at work by no later than eight a.m. He doesn’t want to have to deal with the probing _“So how’d it go? Did you guys...?”_ questions he’d get for coming home the next morning after going on a date.

Living with these people, Michael has learned, means he has almost no privacy, and while, yes, he loves them to death, some things he’d like to keep to himself. Like last night.

Now normally when someone gets home the next morning after going out on a date, one would assume they’d fucked and had a good time. Or maybe just cuddled the night away. Or maybe they stayed up talking late into the night and straight into the morning about the philosophical meaning of life and whether or not _The Museum of Innocence_ is Orphan Parmuk’s best work to date.

But that’s not what happened with Michael and his date.

No, instead of having a fun night of flirting and drinking like he was supposed to, Michael ended up passing out in the bathroom of the bar they (as in: he and his blind date) went to for their date, because Meg liked it and insisted that it would be a good place to go on a date since there were a lot of people, so if things got too awkward or the conversation lulled Michael could point out something someone was doing that was funny or interesting. He wasn’t found until the next morning, when he woke up to the sound of the guy who was manning the bar last night telling him he had to leave while his head was pressed up against a dirty stall door.

Some Illuminati conspiracy was inked into the door, right in his blurry line of view, and absently his hungover self could admire the dedication it took to make such a neat and symmetrical triangle on the door of the stall. It probably took ages of practice to get the eye just right, too. And then there were tons of phone numbers and slurs scratched into the stall walls around him that weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been; actually, it was probably the cleanest (in terms of language) stall door he’d ever rested his head on while drunk.

He crossed his eyes so he could make out some of the words, trying to get a sense of what was going on as his drink addled brain was taking a bit to fill him in on where he was and what happened last night. When his stomach roiled and burped uncomfortably, however, he knew that it was a bad idea and slammed his eyes shut.

Closing his eyes did nothing, because you can’t undo crossing your eyes like a moron while drunk, and the dizzying action had him lurching towards the toilet and throwing up as loudly as humanly possible. 

So sour-mouthed and dizzy, he wiped his mouth off with the sleeve of his jacket and flushed the toilet, making a queasy groan before he was handed a bottled water under the door by the bartender, who then ruined any bit of compassion that Michael thought he might be feeling for him by telling him that he needed to leave now or have the cops called on him. The guy didn’t call the cops when he pulled out his phone though and instead called the cab that took Michael back to his apartment.

He may have gotten stupidly inebriated (more than he has been in years) on the date Meg set him up on, but he maintains that that’s kind of what you’re supposed to do when you’re at a club, so he really can’t be blamed for it. But ditching his date halfway through the night because they were too different from what he wanted them to be (not like there are a lot of people who can claim to be wayward vagabonds that were once roadies for a punk band, were in the army, dropped out of college to take care of their family, and have a guilty pleasure for Fleetwood Mac)? Yeah. Maybe the blame can be put on him for that. Maybe that was a dick move on his part.

He’s aiming to go into his apartment and sleep off the guilt and the little bit of remaining alcohol in his system, thinking that he’s somehow managed to get off scot-free for the terrible turn the night took, but as he’s reaching for the knob of his door he feels his phone vibrate in his back pocket and he just _knows_. Even the way the phone vibrates against his ass while the lyrics to _“Work Bitch,”_ the latest song by pop icon and personal life motivator to many including himself, Britney Spears, plays semi-quietly feels like it’s in judgement.

“Shit,” he says, and then proceeds to bang his head on his door.

He digs into his back pocket for his phone and swipes his thumb to unlock it. There are two messages from Jack from late the night before (probably about the toilet he needs Michael’s help to fix because it’s always faster for them to work on the things in the apartment together than to wait a week for the complex’s management to do it) and then one from Meg. It’s new, having just been sent, and Michael closes his eyes for a few seconds because he doesn’t think that it’s going to be good.

He taps on the screen to open the text up and holds his breath, hyper aware of the mail he has tucked under his arm with one of Geoff’s postcards stuck between a magazine and a flier advertising someone’s ninety-nine cent yard sale down the street.

His phone buzzes again in his hand and he watches in horror as more texts pop up, cringing already without having read them yet. 

“Shit! _Shit_ ,” Michael parrots again for good measure, cheeks bright red and palms sweaty.

He doesn’t even remember that happening, but now that Meg has mentioned it… maybe it did. He hasn’t been drunk around anyone in a long time, but he knows that when he’s drunk he gets loud and loses all inhibitions. For all he knows (and from past experiences he wishes he could forget but that his brothers bring up every Christmas) he very well could have took his pants off and danced on the bar while crooning about how much Geoff likes Fleetwood Mac.

If Ray hears about this… fuck. _Fuck_. Ray absolutely can _not_ hear about this.

Michael quickly types out his reply ( _“I’ll tell you all about it if you swear you won’t tell Ray about this. Or anyone. Not even Lindsay, and I mean that. I’ll spill all of the dirt I have on you, Meg. Don’t think I won’t.”_ ) and then shoves his phone back into his pocket.

He curses again, loudly, and bangs his head on the door while mumbling to himself.

“Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. How could you be so stupid?”

“I’d say if, at some point, you stop hitting your head, then your brain cells would stop dying, which could help. But, the thing is, I’m a little skeptical that you have any left to lose if you go around hitting your head on things to relieve stress. I just yell into a pillow. It’s never actually worked.”

Michael jumps, straightening and turning quickly towards the sound of the voice.

There, right outside the door of the not-actually-dead-but-thought-to-be man’s room, stands a tall man with dark hair and a long face, faint stubble lining his chin and upper lip, brown eyes looking amused with Michael’s antics. The man is drowning in a dark blue hoodie, heavy and slouchy, and his similarly dark cargo shorts are covered in some type of liquid. He looks a little bit like a mad scientist, but less mad and more morally ambiguous.

Michael recognizes the voice after a few seconds when his brain catches up with him, the same one that yelled at him after he knocked on the door at the end of the hall to see if Gavin was right about the man in the room being dead or not. So not only is the man at the end of the hall not dead, but he has also now witnessed Michael talking to himself and banging his head on the door. Great.

“Uh…”

“I’m Joel,” the man, Joel, offers.

“Okay? I’m, uh, I’m Michael. I moved in a few months ago, but I guess we’ve never really met officially...” 

 _Except for that time I knocked on your door, you yelled something at me in probably the harshest tone I’ve ever heard in my entire god damn life, and I ran away like a scared little fuck who just got caught cheating on a test for the first time_ , his brain helpfully supplies for himself. He doesn’t think repeating any of that to Joel would be a good idea, though, so he keeps it to himself.

He thinks that maybe he should offer to shake Joel’s hand, but there’s a good amount of distance from Michael’s door to Joel’s and he figures it’d be weird to march over and shake Joel’s hand now. Especially after what Joel just witnessed.

Also Joel is a little bit scary. It’s probably the whole mysterious-guy-at-the-end-of-the-hall-who-I’ve-never-seen-before thing he’s got going on. It’s pretty creepy. Kind of _1408_ meets _Night of the Demon_ because he’s only ever interacted with Joel once before (after he was temporarily terrorized by Joel yelling through his door at Michael’s knocking) and a hotel _is_ kind of like an apartment but with maids and room service.

“I know, well, you see, Margaret’s told me about you.” Joel’s voice dips here and there as he exaggerates words in a way Michael thinks isn’t intentional, just a slightly frazzled edge in the tone of his voice that’s always been there.

“You talk to Margaret?” Michael asks, but then he remembers her stuffing mail under the door of Joel’s room all those weeks ago and figures she must be the only one he talks to. “I mean, good things, right? Would suck if she’s been talking smack about me to some guy down the hall.”

Joel shakes his head. “No, aha, none of that, but she’s said you have a secret admirer.”

“I don’t have a—” Michael pauses. “You mean the postcards?”

Joel grins suddenly like that’s something to be happy about, nodding quickly and waving Michael over. Why was no one else this happy about him getting postcards from someone he didn’t know? Michael feels like he’s been swindled.

“She said that you’ve been getting postcards from someone for a while and I wanted to know why.”

Michael opens his mouth to tell the guy that it’s none of his business, but then snaps his mouth shut. If Margaret finds out that he yelled at someone who’s her friend then she won’t teach him how to make that brisket she made for dinner last week.

Michael shrugs, trying to play off the fact that he almost told the guy to go fuck himself.

“He just wanted to have someone to talk to.”

“So you talk to him?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t have to. Geoff does enough talking for the both of us.”

Joel’s grin widens and he says, beyond excited, “Wait here and don’t move,” before marching into his room and closing the door behind him. Michael considers for a second the idea of just going inside and pretending none of this happened, but not even a minute later Joel comes back again before Michael can act on it. He was about seventy percent sure he was going to do it too because this feels incredibly awkward.

Joel is now holding a folded up picture in his hands, something that looks a little wrinkled. He hands it over to Michael and when Michael goes to look at it he shakes his head and makes a shooing motion.

“Look at it when you get back to your room. I don’t have the time to talk anymore, I’ve got to get back to my experiment. You’re welcome, okay? Bye.”

The door closes behind Joel and Michael is left standing out in the empty hall with a picture he still hasn’t looked at and the words, “What do you mean ‘experiment’?” dying in his throat. He feels like he’s been blindfolded and spun around in circles, brain muddled and disorientated, because _what_? What just happened?

When he gets back to his room, he carries the picture and the new postcard over to the couch, where he settles in and then unfolds the picture, the postcard sat on his thigh for the time being. After smoothing out the creases on the photo, he looks it over with mild curiosity.

The photo seems to be of a man in his late twenties or very early thirties, he’s wearing a gray T-shirt around his chest and there’s a khaki colored cadet hat with frayed stitching on his head. There’s a young cat on the man’s shoulders and he’s reaching behind his head to pet it on its belly, making the dark tattoos on his arm apparent. The man is smiling with his mouth closed, a light beard on his face and eyes that Michael can’t tell the color of because of the shadow the hat casts on the man’s face.

It’s a soft image, the colors muted and meshing well together, and Michael is confused as to why he was given it. It’s clearly not of Joel — though Michael isn’t sure why he’d be given a picture of Joel by Joel in the first place — and Michael definitely doesn’t know the man in the picture.

He frowns and racks his brain, trying to put a name to the face but coming up blank. After a long minute, he shrugs and puts the picture down on the coffee table, grabbing the postcard off of his lap and smiling excitedly.

It’s been a good ten days since the last postcard he got from Geoff and he’s been a little antsy about it, trying to figure out where the next postcard would be coming from and when it would arrive. He’s invested in a map of the United States and a photo album since the last card, figuring that he might as well start keeping track of the cards so that they’re not as disorganized as before. He went ahead and turned the old card basket into something to hold his keys with (since his keychain now has the spares for everyone else’s apartments as well as the key for his apartment) and everything, so he’s determined to keep using the photo album.

He’s marked little red ‘X’s over the places Geoff has sent postcards from (some of the places he’s sent from weren’t marked on the map, but luckily he found the general locations on Google Maps and used that to plot out where the ‘X’s should go) on the map and he’s used the photo album to hold the postcards, using each laminated page for each postcard, going in order from the first one he got to the latest one; the album has ninety-five pages, so if he gets more than that then he’ll just have to go out and buy another one (the thought of having to buy another photo album because he has too many postcard really shouldn’t have him so giddy, really, but it does and Michael is shameless about it).

This card features the scenic image of a small farm surrounded by a large forest of trees that are scattered everywhere, their leaves burning a rustic red color that stutters over to green in small patches. The entire image is surrounded by a thick black border and a crisp golden line that cuts through the border and meets the similarly golden and sharp word _‘Vermont’_ that’s centered at the bottom of the card.

Michael pushes back into the couch more, aiming to get a little bit more comfortable as he turns the card over to see that Geoff has left an ample amount of words this time for Michael to read. He pulls his legs up underneath himself and shrugs off the jacket on his shoulders, tossing it over the back of the couch like it’s a throw cover.

The subscript at the top left-hand corner of the card reads _‘Pawlet, VT’_ and Michael chews on the inside of his cheek while thinking about where that is in relation to the last place Geoff was at, how many miles he must have traveled to get there in the ten days since the last postcard.

Geoff’s postcard this time reads:

> _What’s the view look like for you right now, New Jersey? Is it nice or complete shit? I know the weather in Jersey is supposed to be good right now so your sky can’t be all that bad, otherwise the weather man is a lying sack of shit. But I’ve got to tell you, the view for me as I’m writing this out is breathtaking. It’s like a super expensive painting or something, sky dark but still lit up by a spattering of stars — someone just flinging paint out at an empty canvas. I never expected to be sitting alone in an empty parking lot in Pawlet, Ver-fucking-mont, laying out on a blanket on the roof of my car while listening to Tool and Robyn, but here I am. I think I’m just going to lay out under the stars tonight. I don’t want to be anywhere else right now or be doing anything else but this, and it feels good. For once it feels good. Geoff._

He just barely brushes the tips of his fingers over the words, corners of his mouth tugging up into a smile without him meaning to.

Geoff seems to be content in this postcard, like the cat who’s got the cream, and it settles any of the uneasiness in Michael like a switch has been flipped. He strokes his thumb along the imprint of where Geoff wrote down Michael’s address a little too hard, letters slurring over the designated _Write Here_ line. He wets his lips with a quick swipe, lips going dry and uncomfortable, as his mind starts swooping and whirring at the last few lines of Geoff’s postcard.

_…and it feels good. For once it feels good._

Something feels different about this card compared to the others, something more free in the way Geoff writes than before. Maybe it’s the difference in the weather up north than in the Midwest, or maybe it’s just Geoff himself, but there’s a change that Michael can read in this postcard; Geoff always has this ability to go from sounding like he’s confused and a little lost in one postcard to telling Michael all about something hilarious that happened to him in the next card. He bounces back easily, it seems, oscillating between being carefree and untroubled one week to being melancholic and thoughtful the next.

He’s used to this, though. Geoff’s ability to play off or entirely ignore something serious and intense he said or mentioned in a previous postcard is uncanny but common, and if Michael hadn’t become accustomed to methodically reading postcards over and over again whenever his day would lull he would wager a good sum that he wouldn’t have noticed it.

And it’s like Geoff doesn’t want it to be noticed, but he also doesn’t want it to be unsaid. Like venting his frustrations is what he needs to do to keep going, but almost as if he’s embarrassed by it — well, perhaps embarrassed is the wrong word. It’s like he’s protecting himself. Like there’s something wounding and deadly about being too honest, even if he’s being honest to nothing more than a postcard (at least, on Geoff’s end that’s what it is — what Michael has to think to stay sane and rational. This is what it has to be, just something one-sided).

This, Michael realized months ago, is who Geoff is. He’s the type of person who will spill out how confused and lonely he is to a stranger over a postcard while drunk, but then ask for it to be forgotten once sober. He doesn’t do emotional confrontation — not that Michael has ever been able to reply back in the first place — and it’s as if he doesn’t want to put the weight of his problems on other people, even in delicately small slices.

It’s amazing, really, how much Michael has learned about Geoff from the things he hasn’t explicitly said, all while virtually still being a stranger to him (although, if you asked Michael, he would never be able to call Geoff a stranger without feeling like he’s being duplicitous and insulting).

But this is a necessity. There’s not a doubt in Michael’s mind that this isn’t exactly what Geoff needs: someone to open up to without the need to talk about it afterwards because he doesn’t have to face them after confessing all of this stuff. He needs a stranger who isn’t some therapist that’ll dissect every little thing all the while pushing him to go further. He admits things, sometimes, without really admitting them, and he only says what he needs to at the time to survive without feeling like he’s constantly drowning.

And Michael will take that. He can absorb all of the unhappiness and loneliness in Geoff and mitigate it for him, because he can take it without feeling it weighing on him. He can be the one to bear the brunt of anything if Geoff needs him to, because stuff like that doesn’t get to him in the way it does to Geoff.

If he’s struggling with something he’ll wait until his mind settles and then he’ll call his mom to talk about it or he’ll come to some ultimatum all by himself. Most of the time it’s his mom that helps him, because she barrels her way through his problems brashly and with an ease that’s anything but sleight of hand. But sometimes he has to deal with things himself — which involves lots of frustrated gesticulating at his mirrored reflection and loud talking, or sometimes furious mumbling, to himself.

But Geoff, Michael is pretty sure, doesn’t just let go of things that easily. He seems like he keeps the bad with him no matter what, unable to just let things fall away naturally over time.

Michael, when he was younger, had a velcro paddle and tennis ball meant for playing some misconstrued version of badminton and baseball. His oldest brother found it for him at some flea market he went to with his friends, and apparently he wanted to bring something back for Michael’s sake and it was the only thing that seemed like Michael would enjoy using. And he wasn’t wrong, but Michael only got the chance to play with it for a day before his dog, a huge doberman rottweiler mix that he’d named Kain, tore into the tennis ball. By then the paddle had also became useless, a myriad of shit clogging the velcro up and getting stuck in it.

Geoff’s headspace is like velcro, Michael decides. Maybe not the exact type of velcro that the cheap paddle was, but the correlation still stands.

Unlike said terrible velcro paddle, however, Geoff is not about to be given up on just like that just because some things are still sticking with him. No matter how bad, how upsetting, Michael will be here, in his unit reading and rereading over card after card all the while thinking about how he’d reply if he could, and he won’t ever give up on Geoff. He can make it.

See, because it’s like this to Michael: Life? It’s a deadweight. Life is a constant never ending search for something greater than you. It is waking up with the room all cold because you left the window up while you slept and now you can't quite feel your arms. It is moving into a new town after living in another for eighteen years and the sense of abandonment that comes with it. It is the quiet when overwhelmed, when crying, when you cannot feel the onrushing space between one heartbeat and the next without feeling heavy at your shoulders.

Life, as it turns out, was never meant to be light as air or some other analogy meant to evoke a feeling of weightlessness. Because life? Well life demands to be felt, to always be present even when you’re sinking under it; never gone, always pushing through heartbeat after heartbeat after heartbeat.

It is not the grain of salt you're told to take. It is, innumerably, the heaviest thing you will ever feel, because it has been with you since the start. You have never been without it and you know of nothing else, so it builds like lead on your shoulders.

And it's also like this: life's an hourglass, counting down years with grains so fine that you want to bury your toes in it, or maybe your head, depending on how heavy life is for you. It counts on in leaps and bounds and sudden jumps of your pulse and the minutia of breaths, and this is the reality of the big, all consuming kaleidoscoping of life. This is what you have. A trickle, however fast or slow, of life from one end of existence into another until it runs out.

You cannot stop it, you cannot rush it, so you have to accept it. You have to let it happen. It is what it is and what it is is just that. An irrepressible constant. Accordioning your shoulders to take the weight of it, you face it. This is how you live. Pushing, pressing at the seams, never resting if it means stopping.

And it seems, to Michael at least, that Geoff must feel unsteady, unsure more of who he is as a person than where he’s going, than what he’s doing with the life he has. His veins tired, his heart heavy, and everything in him screaming at him to keep going, keep moving, or he’ll miss out on something he doesn’t even know the name of.

Push at the binds around you, rebel a little, try to make life settle for you, but don’t let it stagnate you.

Keep going because the hourglass hasn’t run out yet so neither should you, don’t stop until you find what you’re looking for, even if that means upending your life and taking a country-wide road trip — even if you don’t know yourself well enough to realize when you find it: your _thing_ , the thing worth searching for. You will get there, and when you do you’ll realize you’ve been looking for what you’ve only just found your whole life, and that it’s just been there waiting for you too.

You’ve just got to keep trying. It’s not a race, the miles to get there don’t matter, but how you get there does. It’s not a simple rolling of the dice, not a coincidence when you find it earlier than you thought, it’s just always been there waiting to be discovered, finally, at that exact time.

It’s not some inane, frilly, cop-out bullshit like destiny. It’s you. And it’s always been you. It’s your strength that will get you there.

Keep going until your bones finally find the place that they’ve always wanted to settle at, the place your heart wants to grow old at. Don’t let yourself stop, not even when you feel your back begin to give in to the weight of everything around you and in your head.

Life is heavy, but don’t stop, don’t let it drag your shoulders down. Don’t let it get to you, not yet, not ever. Just a little bit more, you can get yourself there if you just keep going. The ground is solid enough to catch you, to hold you up, so don’t worry about falling until you reach what you’re looking for — you don’t have to know what it is yet, but you’ll find it. Just don’t stop hoping. Don’t stop searching. Don’t stop trying.

_Do not give up._

There’s a beat, a moment where Michael’s thoughts just stop, and then he’s reaching for the picture of the man in the cadet hat again and unfolding it so he can hold the postcard in his left hand while the man in the picture stares at him with that hint of a smile in his right.

He stares at the man again, at the cat on his shoulders, and then looks behind the man in the picture. He stands up, walking over to the area a few steps away from the kitchen island where his kitchen wall meets the wall that his bedroom door is at. He looks down at the picture, then back up at the wall. He puts the picture of the man right up next to the wall.

It matches.

His heart thuds painfully in his chest, nothing breezy about it, and he knows.

“No way,” he mumbles in disbelief. “No fucking way. This isn’t— This can’t—”

He shuts his eyes and attempts to swallow around the restrictive tightness that’s slowly building in his throat while his mind whirls and tries to put two and two together. When he opens his eyes again — after a long moment of just standing there while clutching at the postcard and the picture, halfway in his living room and halfway in his kitchen — he takes a deep breath and then turns the picture over to the back.

Without missing a beat, Michael drops the picture, the postcard held too tightly in his hand for him to let go, and he sinks to the floor with it. There, on the back of the picture, is the hastily scrawled out and underlined date the photo was taken and the name of the man in it, the one whose smile only curled slightly when captured, a barely there thing that Michael feels down to his bones all too suddenly.

The pieces seem to fall into place, a dawning of understanding easing its way along his mind. A warmth unfurls in his stomach, then, brighter and more fulfilling than anything Michael has known before.

His fingers shake as he brushes his hand along his chin, a burst of nervous, almost manic, laughter leaving him, though he’s not quite sure that there’s anything funny enough to be laughing at right now. Unless he’s laughing at himself, which he figures anyone else would be, because he must look absolutely pathetic right about now, sitting on his weak legs that couldn’t hold him up anymore, right there on the floor, clutching a postcard to his chest while the picture he dropped is just sitting out in the open for all to see other than Michael, who can’t quite find it in him to look at it directly.

He laughs again, quiet at first and then jarringly louder, feeling a bit strung out, everything in him liquefying into something exciting and terrifying and unbelievable radiant — everything all at once that Michael hasn’t felt since he was a teenager and his girlfriend had just whispered to him that she loved him at the dinner table, right in front of his mom and dad without either of them hearing.

Michael glances down at the picture without meaning to and the words on it stare up at him like a challenge, a declaration that this is real now, that it’s inescapable. That it’s everything and nothing and Michael doesn’t know how to handle this, why his hands won’t stop shaking.

But he can’t find it in himself to look away, his heart beating so loud that he doesn’t think he’d be able to hear anything other than its unsteady _one, two, one, two_.

The words are short and choppy for obvious reasons and Michael can’t stop reading them over and over again, his heart never slowing down, his cheeks never stop burning. A scorch mark has been left all over him from his fingers to him toes, the picture a kindling with a match already lit and waiting, flame shivering in anticipation for something bigger than itself, for a proper fire to ignite.

He thinks then that he’s found it, what he’s been looking for all this time.

He doesn’t want to look away, eyes burning and heart singing.

Finally, Michael thinks.

 _Finally_.

_April 16th, 2011. Geoff Ramsey._

_ _

•••

 **Bennington, VT**  
**September 23rd, 2015**

 _I just watched Hotel Rwanda on this motel room cable. It’s hard to believe that something so horrible happened_ while _I was in the Army, and I had no real idea. Makes me feel pretty small and ignorant. G._

•••

 **Swanzey, NH**  
**September 27th, 2015**

_Been thinking about finding somewhere to work at for a bit until I’ve got some money again, because gas and shit really isn’t a joke. I took all of my savings out to go on this trip, figuring that I could make it a whole year before I ran out, but I must be spending too much or something, because I’m almost out of money — like the money I have to have unless I want to start hitchhiking and digging through trash for food, not just spending money. Maybe if I would have spent less at bars and stopped to do a few things for people here and there for more than favors I might not have to consider stopping for a while. It would’ve been great to go the whole year, but eight months is OK, right? I think it’s not bad, considering all of the extra stuff I spent money on. I guess I kind of just forgot that I actually had to keep track of what I was spending. I’m used to being poor from growing up, so I know enough tricks to keep from draining the rest of the cash for about another month, I think. I just have to find somewhere I like and then I’ll start working part-time. Geoff._

•••

 **Washington, NH**  
**September 30th, 2015**

_I ran out of gas on the way to check out Pillsbury State Park, because my stupidly crap car just eats gas, apparently. I had to pull over as best as I could considering how fast the gas was running out and I sat there for a minute or two getting out my frustrations by saying some pretty choice words about my car. But, my shitty hand-me-down car aside, I had a good little forty minute walk to get some gas and back. You’d think something like walking twenty minutes to and then twenty minutes back from a gas station would be an inconvenience, but it was actually quite fun. Weird. Geoff._

•••

 **Andover, NH**  
**September 31st, 2015**

_Someone stole my fucking radio right out of my car; just pulled it out and bolted before I got back. All I wanted to do was stop to take a piss at this shitty rest stop off the road. Fuck. How am I supposed to pass the time while driving now? Play I Spy with myself? Yeah, no thanks. I don’t have the kind of money to buy a new stereo. I’m going to have to save some money up and buy a CD player or something. Do CD players even exist anymore or has Apple just taken over? Jesus Christ, this sucks. Hope your day is going better over there, New Jersey. At least someone deserves a good day. G._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so much I want to write and I don't want the chapters to be super long, so I'm extending this a bit. It would be only seven chapters, but I have a thing about odd numbers so... eight chapters it is. (I'm posting this right as it's hit midnight on the east coast, so technically it's Tuesday now, but let's all pretend that I got this chapter out when I said I would.) Comments appreciated and loved as always! xx
> 
> P.S. I listened to Chasing Rubies by Hudson Taylor on repeat while writing this chapter. Great song for Michael in this fic. Ache by James Carrington would definitely be Geoff's song if I had to pick one for him, too. Well, there are a lot of songs that fit them both. I'll have to make a playlist for this fic when it's done.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a WIP so head's up: there's been five new postcards added (Mesa in ch. four; Yukon and Norwood in ch. five; Bennington and Washington in ch. six). So, tbh, I'd suggest reading those and the last chapter before reading this one... or just reread the whole fic because it's been a while, kiddies.

**Wolfeboro, NH**  
**October 1st, 2015**

_There is nothing better after a good long day of some manual labor (as in: I’ve just finished painting and ripping up carpet for a fine couple here in need of my handiwork in trade for cash money, baby) than a nice, ice cold beer courtesy à la the same lovely couple who gave me work. I think you know what I am talking about. I've probably mentioned it before in one of my other postcards at some time during this trip, but I think it bears repeating again: a cold beer is fucking awesome, dude, no matter what season it is or where you’re at. Plus I find that New Hampshire’s countryside — at the risk of sounding like one of those cheesy old ladies that decorate their yards with pink flamingos and lawn gnomes — is utterly breathtaking and a place I could see myself staying at when I’ve aged enough to retire myself into an old folks home. Give me a couple of years and maybe I’ll come back here. Now, though, I’m going to go ahead and keep trekking along. This will probably be my last card from New Hampshire. Say goodbye to it, New Jersey; I’m sure it’ll miss us. Geoff._

•••

 **Naples, ME**  
**October 3rd, 2015**

_Do you know how to ride a motorcycle, New Jersey? You should absolutely try it some day, because it’s god damn incredible._

_If you can’t guess, I caved and bought a touring motorcycle. Well, I didn’t “buy”_ _it in the conventional sense of the word; I traded in my car for the motorcycle like a caveman trading stones or coins or whatever the fuck cavemen traded for food. It actually went better than I thought it would since Steffie (the girl I traded with) really liked my car and said there was a lot of potential. I guess my car was going to be her fall project or something. The motorcycle is cool, too — way better than I thought it’d be — and the wind feels amazing when I ride it; it’s colder up here, the air more clean, and the feeling of the wind whipping around me and brushing under my clothes is like sex — well, if you’re having some pretty boring sex (which isn’t negating the feeling, because even boring sex is fucking amazing)._

_I ended up leaving my guitar and some unimportant knick-knacks that I’d accumulated from this whole trip with her since I can’t really take that stuff with me anymore (I have Steffie’s number now so she’ll send me my things whenever I finish this trip up). She also taught me how to pack a motorcycle and I now have as follows:_

  * _one of Steffie’s old CamelBak backpacks that she had when she’d go biking — a tentative loan and “collateral,” as she called it, in case I would be worried that she wouldn’t send my stuff back (I wasn’t worried, she’s a good kid, I could tell); she’ll get it back when I’m stable somewhere and we can switch our stuff out through the help of FedEx_
  * _a small Windzone tool kit plus some wire ties and duct tape_
  * _two cans of Fix-A-Flat_
  * _two pairs of driving gloves_
  * _a leather jacket that I already owned, but Steffie said I’d need to wear daily now_
  * _an open-faced helmet (I could’ve got any type of helmet, but I like this one the most; Steffie said I’d be regretting it when I fuck up and end up in an accident and get my top lip bitten off, but, hey, at least I’ll look good doing it)_
  * _a pair of goggles_
  * _baby wipes (Steffie insisted I’d need these after being on the road for a while)_
  * _rain gear_
  * _a Butler Map_
  * _ear plugs_



_I can’t wait to hit a long, empty stretch of road and just drive for miles. Drive for hours. For as long as I need to. We’ll have to test how fast this baby can really go. Being up in the north is a much needed solace. Geoff._

•••

 **Poland, ME**  
**October 7th, 2015**

_Y’know, despite all the fucking years I put in school and my half-assed two semesters in both USC and Rutgers, I’ll admit that I had no idea there was a place called Poland in Maine. And Maine is pretty amazing, FYI._

_This place feels like a big Band-Aid for the whole of the U.S. It’s like the entire state of Maine is trying to make up for all of the shitty faults in the rest of the shithole that is the U.S. and it fucking works. This place is like a god damn fever dream, but in a good, I-could-see-myself-here kind of way and not in a nightmare way. So maybe the opposite of a fever dream, actually._

_I feel like I’m charging up for something else here. The mountains in this place are mind blowingly gorgeous and make me want to cry like a baby — just the air up here is enough to make me weepy. Refreshed. I feel so fucking refreshed. New, maybe. I don’t know. G._

•••

 **Poland, ME**  
**October 7th, 2015**

_Sorry for the double up in postcards, but it’s been a few hours since I wrote that first card and now I’m… I’m not sure. I just wanted to write some more. I’ve got my ride sitting off to the side of Jordan Shore and I’m looking out on this lake or pond or whatever and I’m starting to want a new tattoo. I just feel like I need something to commemorate this. I’ll find a shop somewhere and see if I can afford it. I could probably just get a walk-in tattoo. I’m not sure yet._

_Whatever it is about this place, whether it’s just the cold air or the earthy smell of pine needles that I can’t seem to shake, it makes me realize that I might not be so confused anymore. It’s like… well, shit, I don’t really know how to explain what it’s like; it’s just different. A change I can feel to the marrow in me. It’s good. It’s everything. Fuck, dude, I could get used to this, y’know?_

_And I started reading some Kafka a bit after I got here too and it’s my crutch right now. You know, I feel like at some point or another everyone will end up in a situation where they read a Kafka book (I’m reading_ The Metamorphosis _currently. Such a typical choice for the first Kafka book to break my cherry). But I’ve been reading a lot, actually, this whole time. I don’t really talk much about it because I figured reading about someone else reading about books is pretty boring and we all know I don’t want to bore you, right, New Jersey?_

 _But reading Metamorphosis is great and it’s totally helping me keep things in perspective. It’s really fucking good, actually, despite the fact that it’s one of those summer reading list type of books. I’ve always wanted to write a book (it’s on my bucket list and everything) and there’s a certain precedent that I’d set for myself for when I start working on it: be even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction as good as_ The Metamorphosis _. Geoff._

_P.S. “Thirty-five shamed me into seeing that I'd gotten everything until then hopelessly wrong. That I could not read even my own years.” Not a quote from Kafka, but from another book I paged through while at the library — which might possibly be the only one — here. It stuck with me._

•••

 **Paris, ME**  
**October 13th, 2015**

_Maine sure does love to steal the names of their towns and cities from other well established places. First Poland and now Paris? Pas… what’s the French word for cool? Is it just the word? Pas cool? Wait, there’s probably an accent mark in there somewhere, right? ‘Cause you know how much the French love their accent marks. Pas cóólé. That seems French enough, but I have no fucking clue, actually; the only foreign language I ever took was German and I can’t even remember the basics of that (so much for honor student smarts. I also failed math three times in high school but I still graduated with honors — that’s Alabama’s school system for you. I even went to college twice, but don’t ask me where those smarts went. Probably all into useless trivia). But I know a word or two from French since Griffon used to force me to watch a lot of old black and white French films with her and her old theater buddies._

_For growing up a punk (for the record: I still am a punk, OK? I was a roadie for a great punk band and I’ve got punk cred for days because of that, so I can totally be a wuss afraid of snakes and scary movies and still be in on the punk scene) you’d think I would’ve hung out with some more hardcore and edgy people who did lines of coke and fucked around, but I really didn’t. Just a bunch of virgin hipsters, theater and band geeks, and low-life kids who were still wet behind the ears but that knew how to hot-wire cars, get alcohol with fake IDs, and sneak into R rated movies. I’d probably get nostalgia from seeing one of those tiny police cells because of my rebellious teenage years and all those parking lot fights I’d get into and then quickly lose (totally on purpose, you know. Didn’t want to hurt anyone…). I don’t know why my mom didn’t just send me off to boot camp when I was younger, because I was a real piece of shit. The army was right after high school, though, so I guess she didn’t really need to in the first place. Geoff._

•••

 **Roxbury, ME**  
**October 17th, 2015**

_This place sounds so familiar to me, though I’m sure I’ve never been here before. It’s all right. Nothing here is exactly groundbreaking in its ingenuity, everything rather uninspired and the lines blurring from Andover — the last place I was at — to this place, but it’s still pretty scenic (everything in Maine is scenic, actually — God damn, do I love this place). There are some nice lookouts here, some rivers and creeks that I’ve dipped my feet in when I’ve needed an icy pick-me-up in the morning. I’m still not over the sight of the mountains and hills along the outline of the sky, though, and don’t think I ever will be. I don’t think the mountains I saw in New Hampshire and Vermont can compare. Maybe the ones in Colorado could compete._

_I had to use my toolkit to fix up a minor setback, which was expected — Steffie said motorcycles do this all the time, especially on road trips, so she got me real prepared for it. I also found a cool retro bottle cap from Carling Black Label beer. I’ve never heard of it before, so it has to be some Canadian beer — I’m getting up there too, so maybe a few Canadians politely asked their way into Maine so they could drink beer and skip some rocks, eh? (Read that in your best Canadian accent. Do it for me. Come on. Don’t let this knee-slappingly good joke go to waste just because you’re reading a card.) I don’t really like the Canadian stuff, no offense to Canadians. You guys can’t have two of the hottest Ryans in the world that make me feel all weird and gooey inside (Gosling and Reynolds, but America lucked out with the hottest Ryan ever: Ryan Phillippe. That man… I would… I… I’d do stuff with him… sticky stuff), free healthcare,_ and _great beer. You just can’t have everything! Save some for the rest of us! Geoff._

_P.S. A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY! THAT’S WHY IT SOUNDS FAMILIAR! Fuck, that movie is old as shit and probably just as terrible as the first — and last — time I saw it with Mingus and Bean (Tomas, bless his redneck heart, was too busy hunting with his folks to come with, though he sure as heck didn’t want to be anywhere near his family, but that’s another story for another postcard)._

•••

 **Jay, ME**  
**October 23rd, 2015**

_I’m starting to wonder if I ever really liked Crass or if I was just forced into liking them or be shamed by the punk community — like a conditioning of my musical tastes or something like that. Don’t get me wrong: they’re one of the best fuckin’ punk bands in the history of punk. Still, I’m wondering how much of the stuff I like right now I actually started liking on my own or if I just automatically liked them depending on my interests at the time. Like, how much of that stuff was actually enjoyable to me right from the get-go? What if I just pretended really hard to like that shit until I actually thought I liked it? A type of influence/peer pressure based Stockholm Syndrome for the shit I like or don’t like. That probably exists, right?_

_Like how in the army I used to go on and on about how much I missed blueberries to the rest of my army buddies whenever I had the opportunity to flap my jaw because everyone talked about loving blueberries (and grapes, on occasion). I mean, hell, we’d all practically come in our pants talking about blueberries, man. Just normal, regular old blueberries. But you know what? When I got back in the U.S. the first thing I did was go to a store and get a crate full of the so-called orgasm inducing blueberries I’d talked about for months on end. I grabbed a handful right out of the crate (which I totally payed for, I’ll have you know), put it in my mouth with my eyes closed expecting some kind of euphoric pleasure to surge through me when the blueberries broke across my tongue and wetted it with juice. I really, really thought I would come in my pants like some virginal pre-teen with acne for days, a crustache, and stale socks hidden away at the bottom of the laundry basket so mommy wouldn’t see._

_Wanna know what happened? I threw up — no bullshit either, but it was projectile. Full on, loud, The Exorcist special effects type of projectile. Guess I spent a lot of time in the army making blueberries out to be the best damn thing I’d ever had in my life, but the second I was out I remembered that I always hated blueberries ever since I got stung by wasps while pulling blueberries off of a bushel in my uncle’s farm — talk about some great aversion therapy, forget A Clockwork Orange, man. I don’t know how I ever forgot how much I hated them. Geoff._

•••

On the day just after Meg and Lindsay’s bachelorette parties (which Gavin referred to as their “hen parties” all freaking night last night in that fake talk of his from wherever the fuck he comes from in the UK), Michael gets a kitten and also a headache, which is not brought on by the kitten, despite what his family’s history of allergic reactions to cats would have lead him to believe. The headache is also, thankfully, not brought upon by an undiagnosed concussion that’s worsened by the flu, and he thanks God for small miracles.

And, actually, before he explains the headache, he should probably rephrase that earlier statement because he doesn’t so much as _get_ a kitten as he has a kitten forced upon him by some higher power who loves fucking with him. If cats weren’t such small, annoying, needy creatures, Michael probably wouldn’t have to deal with both a kitten and a headache at the same time, but of course he has to because the only other alternative is to be an even bigger piece of shit than he already is.

But, in light of the fact that it is the day after Meg and Lindsay’s collective day (it’d be disrespectful to do two avid cat lovers dirty by being a prick about cats), and that it’s early, and that he’s got a headache, he’ll put aside his feelings about the furry, four-legged, carnivorous devils that he’s pretty sure are working against him for (hopefully only) a few days — especially considering that it’s Thanksgiving today.

(Which all cats are — working against him, that is. It’s really a story for another day, but he will never forgive Free, Meg’s cat, for that time while animal sitting when she stared straight at his face after having methodically scratched at the kitchen floor next to the litter box, turned in a circle twice, and then proceeded to pee on the floor instead of in the litter box; this resulted in a terrible smell and also wet paws that Michael had to clean with warm water so as to not track pee all over the apartment. Michael maintains that Willy, Lindsay’s cat, would have never done that to him because Willy, despite being a cat, is actually all right in his book.)

So his headache is not the fault of any animal’s, but rather it’s the fault of the neighbors that live a floor below him. The ones that, before this experience, he had never met before. Not that he’d been adamantly avoiding them, just that he’d never seen any of them past fleeting glances of their backs when he’d pick up his mail. Plus he’s not really the type to say, “Howdy, neighbor!” (meaning he’s not the suburban white dude in khakis and a polo in every 80s movie that his dad loves playing around Christmas time) and he normally just goes about his business without stopping for a chat.

Today, he doesn’t meet them at the mailboxes or even inside of the apartment complex. No, despite the odds of a mundane meeting being what they have, he somehow finds himself meeting them outside of the complex, everyone piled out into the small parking lot off to the side of the building; they’re shivering in the cold and huddled close together like penguins searching for warmth, a mix of bedhead twisting hair into knots and dried drool denoting how abruptly they were all woken up to file out of the building.

But that’s only after, because first he wakes up, gets his glasses on, shuffles into loose fitting clothes, and grabs an old pair of sneakers that are a bit too narrow for the thick and fuzzy socks on his feet (one of which he had to search for at the foot of his bed). After he miraculously manages to get his shoes on — right foot first, then the left — he leaves his apartment with Meg’s borrowed iPod in hand and heads to the complex’s exit.

He doesn’t bother with a jacket, the long sleeves of his shirt should be enough — and even if they’re not he’ll be fine, because the cold air refreshes his lungs and prevents his thoughts from focusing on things like his lack of sleep and the fact that this will be his first Thanksgiving not at his ex-girlfriend’s apartment or even at his own parents’ house in years (his first time not having to do anything, actually. He’ll probably just end up playing video games all day unless the group has Thanksgiving plans together, in which case he’ll probably end up rolling around on the floor with Gavin while fighting for the one working Xbox controller).

His mother would throw up a fit if she knew that he consciously chose to leave his jacket behind before leaving the apartment, cursing up a storm and telling him about the one time — singular, because it never happened again — he left the house at eleven-years-old without one and came back with a wet cold. She’s never stopped doting on him even after he hit his twenties; his dad used to tell him when he was younger that it was because he was the baby of the family, and Michael knows it’s the truth. Afterall, his mom would always tell him that he was growing up too fast all throughout his childhood.

He says a silent prayer that she doesn’t wake up with the strange urge to call and tell him to keep warm. She’s done it before when Michael has went without a coat, almost like a sixth sense of hers is solely focused on whether or not he has a jacket or coat on and that he remembered to take his contacts out before bed.

It’s too dark and early, before the birds have even started to sing, but he knows that the sky will start to light up with muted blues and greys in only a few minutes. It’s officially hit the winter time and though the seasonal weather may keep the sun contained, slice by slice, in a haze until noon when the clouds will start to drift away, it also has the sun rising earlier than ever and setting before it’s even turned six p.m.

So by all accounts Michael should be sleeping, but he hasn’t had the best of sleep lately; he stays up until two a.m. every night and then he’ll toss and turn himself awake by no later than five a.m. with only a few short hours or minutes of sleep in him. He’s always sweating when it happens, panting like he’s run a mile, and he has to dig the flesh of his palms into his eyes to lessen the pain there.

Headaches, lately. That’s all he’s been having. It’s nothing major (just in case, Lindsay and Ryan had forced him to visit the doctor about it after he mentioned it offhandedly while they were hanging out and everything came out fine), it’s just that his job puts a strain on his body from all the heavy lifting and extensive work, and since it’s a short week away from December he’s been busting his ass working extra hours so he can have Christmas week off.

So he’s been getting headaches and pains in his back that he’s been counteracting by doing yoga more often. Most of the time he does yoga by himself, Meg and Lindsay too busy with planning for their wedding to help him out, and he’s been saving up to buy gifts for both the Tuggey-Turney wedding and Christmas, which means he can’t afford to go to yoga classes unless he can find free ones. Not that he’d want to be around a bunch of sweaty people he doesn’t know while they hum and work on their “chi” or whatever it is most yoga people yap their mouths about — he much prefers Lindsay’s tough love and Meg’s _‘no talking, just listening’_ method of teaching.

Which is a bummer, really, because Meg and Lindsay make the whole yoga process seem so much easier than it actually is when they’re the ones teaching him, so he mostly ends up contorted awkwardly and in pain when he does it by himself. However, when he can’t find it in himself to almost break his back trying to do some of the more skilled yoga positions that involve all of his limbs twisting in uncomfortable positions, he’ll put on sweats and a loose tank (or something long-sleeved, depending on the swinging weather of New Jersey), tug a beanie over his ears, and go for a run.

He can’t even believe he’s saying this, really, but working out is kind of addicting.

In all of Michael’s twenty-eight years he never thought he’d be the kind of person to do yoga without complaining and go for runs as a form of mental relief without at the very least being held at gunpoint (seriously, he used to hate, hate, _hate_ running because it would make his legs sore, but recently he’s started to enjoy the pain). But he loves it, really. It feels good to be active, to do something that makes him feel less caged in and stagnant; something that let’s him move, and pant, and feel his heart race over something that’s not just a really vivid wet dream.

(Okay… so is he a little sexually frustrated lately? Absolutely. Listen, he can only jerk it so many times to Kurt Russell in Escape From New York without it starting to feel a bit repetitive. Plus he thinks he’s getting carpal tunnel, so he’s had to hold off on his healthy, completely normal morning ritual as of late. Though he has been trying to go on more dates lately, but nothing’s really progressed past heavy-petting. Meg says he’s still hung up on Geoff. Michael says Meg should stop talking and focus on how he totally just kicked her ass in Peggle.)

He loves the burn of stretching and having Meg guide Lindsay and him when they’re learning a new position in yoga, the way it makes his whole body shake, but not necessarily in a bad way. Having someone actually telling him what to do and really pushing him to keep going really stretches his limit and he’s thankful for that too, even when he ends up exhausted. Plus the feeling of laying flat on his bed afterwards is worth the temporary discomfort from yoga and the feeling of utter content after letting all of the tension leak from his body is so much better than any _‘just beat the last boss in this game after hours of failed attempts’_ euphoria.

And running. God, running is so fucking refreshing and free and he loves running the most, easily. He doesn’t know why he didn’t start doing it sooner, but he’s forever grateful to Meg for taking him on a few runs before she had to stop doing them with him because of the wedding stuff (she insisted that he run twice as far now, half for him and half for her). He thrives off of the heavy beating of his feet when they hit the uneven cement lining the sidewalks in Fort Lee, the constant push to keep going until he’s got a stitch in his side and has to stop to slow his breath and grip at his knees, and he even loves the labored breaths he has to take intermittently when he starts running again, no holds barred.

Lately he’s been running whenever he can’t sleep, which is to say that he’s been running every night to early morning for almost a month now. Sometimes he’ll get up as early as four a.m. to run because he can’t stand staring up at his ceiling while trying to will himself to sleep anymore. Other times he’ll wait out the need to move until he hears Gavin and Ryan heading off to work, chattering in the hallway while they clutch their thermoses full of coffee and tea to their chests and talk about their respective classes — Gavin teaching science to middle schoolers and Ryan teaching a sociology class to college students.

It helps, the running, because when he gets back home he’s usually worn out, limbs heavy, and the kiss of his bed is heaven and lulls him to sleep quickly, even if it’s not for long.

In the space between those short hours of sleep Michael has started having dreams and in almost every single one of them he leaves New Jersey. He bulks up his backpack with the things he needs, tapes his apartment key to the girls’ door along with a note to them and the rest of the gang, puts on a jacket and just leaves. Easy as that. No hard thinking, just a shut door to an apartment complex in New Jersey and the turn of a key in the ignition of his car.

Occasionally, less recently, he has dreams where he meets Geoff (which is a lot easier now that he knows what Geoff looks like, because before in his dreams Geoff would manifest as some nondescript person with such a normal face he’d forget it by the time he’d wake up). They talk. It never makes it past pleasantries before Geoff says his goodbyes and leaves, heading west now that he’s reached the top of the east.

The last thing Michael sees in the more recent dreams he has of Geoff is always the same: Geoff, beautiful and ragged and standing a few inches shorter than Michael with dirt under his nails, smiling softly at Michael’s stuttering while he fumbles for something to say to get Geoff to stay. And then he’ll reach up and pat Michael’s cheek once before drawing back and heading for the door. He always waves while passing through the doorway, not even bothering to check if Michael is watching him as he waves blindly behind himself because he already knows Michael is, and then he’s gone like he was never there in the first place. Nothing makes him want to stay because he’s not attached to anywhere but the road. Michael will wake up feeling overwhelmingly disappointed and a bit misty-eyed without fail when he has those dreams.

Except, most times, when he gets up to brush his teeth for lack of anything else to do after such a sudden awakening, he’s always hit with how, more than anything, he can’t help but feel unexplainably _jealous_.

So he’s running.

It’s aimless, like it is every morning, and he knows that by the end of it he’ll have to use the map on his phone to find the way back to the apartment, because his sense of direction has always been shit, anyway; in high school he’d get lost riding his bike to and from his temporary retail job at A&P almost every day even though it was just around the block from his house — even walking to school was difficult, but he’d always have his friends to help him get there. His shitty sense of direction doesn’t stop him from turning down onto a street he’s never been down before, though.

The music playing from his earbuds is quiet, turned down enough not to give him a headache, and he’s focusing on schooling his breathing to a more calm rate. He needs to pace himself, to slow down before he wears himself out and has to walk back to the apartment with a dry mouth and knees that want to bring him to the ground.

But the thing is, is that when it gets like this, when he’s only running on two or three hours of sleep, it’s hard for him to relax. His body keeps moving and his heart just keeps hammering against his ribs like he was never asleep in the first place. It’s hell, really, and the only way to counteract it is to push until he can’t go anymore; that’s when everything slows, when his eyelids sink and rise and sink again until he has to forcefully rub at them to get them to stay open.

So he keeps going like that for over an hour, pace fast and choppy, even when he feels like he’s being stretched thin, his body pulled and elongated like Play-Doh, but he doesn’t break and slow down until he starts to recognize the signs of sleek buildings that he knows are close to home.

He turns the music up to distract himself, the concept of worrying about a possible headache only an echo now, faint, while he squints and rubs at his cold and runny nose. It’s getting brighter outside now, the sky finally turning blue instead of the deep plum color that Michael wanted to bite into when he first saw it after waking.

The ground is a mess as he runs across it, something akin to an experimental papier-mâché, everything plastered together and sopping. The leaves from where autumn has still not quite left for winter are patchworked in groups and covering the streets and sidewalks, filling in the ocean deep potholes that tend to litter New Jersey in groups and plugging up the storm drains. Fort Lee is still all downpour wet from the large amounts of rain the day before, causing the leaves to slick up the roads in unsafe masses, and for once in Michael’s life he’s glad that he only ever drives when he absolutely needs to, preferring to walk or bike to where he needs to go.

His watch says it’s ten minutes past six when he glances at it, which means he’ll have to move over to the sidewalk as everyone on the east coast collectively heaves out their early morning groans and start to wake and begin their daily routines, now made harder by the fact that it’s a holiday.

He’s been following the bright yellow reflectors that dash along the middle of the road since he left the apartment a while ago, occasionally turning off to the sidewalk to let a stray car pass him by without noticing him, and he’s found a game in counting them when his mind starts to wander into existential panic territory.

Which is always.

Every second he’s been running he’s been getting lost in the existential panic that seemingly always creeps up on him when the holidays start rolling in, but it’s just been more pronounced lately.

He’s been off his axis ever since he woke up at three in the morning and wanted to stop existing. Not in the scary ‘ _I want to never live again’_ kind of way, but in the confusing ‘ _I want the world to let me exist in another way because I want to breathe for once and something isn’t right in the light years worth of distance between my head and my lungs and my place in this universe must have been shifted while I slept’_ kind of way.

It’s like he’s been put together wrong, someone carelessly shoving puzzle pieces together in a rush and leaving deep gaps between one curve and the next. He’s just utterly unsettled, can’t stop moving, and there’s nothing he can do to fix it; this feeling of being out of place overwhelming him. It’s not wanderlust exactly but it’s not far off from it either.

He wants to move. To take his plane of existence and put it somewhere else for a while. Be a whole new person in another part of the world where no one knows him — which isn’t to say that he wants his friends to forget about him or that he wants his mom to stop calling him, because he can’t even find it in himself to think of anything more horrible. It’s just… it’s an emptiness that he can’t think to fill with anything other than something new and unknown.

He woke up with only one fuzzy sock on and a pillow mark on his cheek that he had to rub at to get rid of and for the life of him he couldn’t stop feeling wrong. Just _wrong_. And the only thing he could think of to right the wrongness he felt was to run and maybe experience or see something different.

Isolation, he’s realized, when it’s of his own choice and is limited to only a few hours is a comfort. Most people like to surround themselves with other people to feel right again, but he can’t do that anymore. He used to. He used to just go hang out with his ex-girlfriend or he’d call up one of his brothers when he was feeling shitty, but that doesn’t help when it’s more than that — than just feeling sick or frustrated. But being alone, wandering around the streets and letting the slight fog and the grey air cloak him like he was never there to begin with just makes things seem easier to cope with.

So he’s been running alone for the past hour or two and though he’s tried to go down as many unfamiliar roads as possible, somehow he ends up seeing nothing new and he’s turning onto the street he lives on by the time six-thirty hits.

He slows when he sees the complex a short distance from him, pulling out his earbuds to finally let the universe’s volume rush back to him. The sound of the winter birds greets him before anything else, having started seeing them alighting in the streets every few minutes, sporadic and grouped together, as the fog lifted and the sky grew brighter. What he also hears, however much later, is the wailing of a fire alarm.

And that’s when he realizes that his phone, the one deep in the front pocket of his sweatpants, has been playing its ringtone of Ryan calling Gavin a few passionate curse words — none of which are polite or appropriate in a church — for what must’ve been a while now without him even noticing because of the music playing from Meg’s iPod and his general absent-mindedness.

He attempts to pull the phone out of his pocket and in the process manages to knock his earbuds out as well and watches regretfully as they spill to the ground, probably getting mud on the wires. Somehow he manages to get the phone off of the lock screen without dropping anything else by the time he stands back up with the earbuds.

He has seven missed calls from Jack, a text message from Lindsay asking if he died, and a voicemail he can’t listen to because he forgot his passcode for it ages ago. He unceremoniously shoves it back into his pocket and hurriedly winds his earbuds up, stuffing the cord into the same space and blessing the fact that sweatpants have large pockets, and then he jogs over to the building, face pinched in confusion.

There’s a mass of tenants huddled up together in the parking lot, their pajamas the only thing dressing them up and keeping them from shivering until their jaws ache, and now that he’s closer he notices the bright red Fort Lee fire truck parked where not even superintendent Hullum is allowed to park.

And he can’t help but to think of every bad scenario that could possibly have happened while he was out of the building within the few seconds it takes to reach the mass of people, because fire trucks come for more than just fires and he lives in a four story apartment complex with nine units on each floor and more than forty people in the building. Forty people who are all piled out into the small side parking lot and blocking any view of his friends if they’re there.

His breath hitches while his mind rushes, some noise leaving him that’s a mix between a choke and a distressed hum, and it’s all he can do to keep his vision from kaleidoscoping into a mess of blurred shapes as he tries to calm himself down. He knows he’s supposed to find something to focus on when he’s panicking, something that will get him to calm down, so he focusses on the fact that there’s no ambulance present. He can’t smell smoke or anything burning. He tries to think of that as he reaches the parking lot full of tired but awake people — none of which look like his friends.

Heart beating slightly faster, the flashing lights from the truck and the wailing of the fire alarm getting to him, he pushes himself into the collection of unhappy tenants until he can find the tallest one there or the one with the easily noticeable bright hair that always manages to stand out despite being short.

His ears are ringing, his neck and cheeks hot, and everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion, all sound muffled with the volume turned down until it’s nothing but a soft hum of static underlying an old VHS tape. For a few wild seconds of pushing past person after person, Michael swears he can’t feel his legs anymore, despite the fact that he’s still walking on them. And he knows even while dizzy and dragging clammy hands through his hair that he’s being dramatic.

He gets it, okay? He knows. But it’s hard to think about how no one else around him seems the least bit worried when his brain keeps supplying increasingly more bizarre and dire reasons for the fire truck being there as time goes on.

Until somehow, instead of finding neither Ryan nor Meg, he ends up colliding into none other than a messy-haired, scruffy looking Joel. The same Joel that he hasn’t seen since the incident in the hallway and who smells suspiciously like he was basting a turkey. His hands find purchase on Joel’s arms during the crash and he has to pull them away quickly when he realizes that they’re shaking, because Joel doesn’t need to know that he’s freaking out here.

Joel stumbles back from the collision force, eyes wide and looking down at Michael, exclaiming, “Oh jeez!” and the sound of it almost makes him want to laugh.

Seriously? _Jeez_?

“My bad,” Michael apologizes tersely, probably sounding rude in his clipped and panicked tone, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He’s just hoping that Joel can’t hear how loudly his heart is beating, though it feels like it’s even louder than the civil defense siren. “I just got here, what’s going on? Is everyone okay?”

He doesn’t have to explain who the ‘everyone’ is for Joel to get it, who just dips his chin and says in that periodically spaced way of his despite Michael’s urgency, “The, ah, fire alarm started going off a few— a couple of minutes ago. Everyone’s okay, the fire—”

Like a pot boiling over, the racing of his heart hits its boiling point, plateaus, and then drops to normal all in the span of three seconds.

_Everyone’s okay._

His head stops swimming, hands releasing themselves from where they’d tightened into nervous, anxious fists, and then he takes one deep breath in and let’s it all go. The tension leaks out of his body, shoulders dropping, and he feels embarrassed by how worked up he got when the group was fine all along.

“Thanks, Joel,” he interrupts. “I’m gonna go find the guys.”

Not sticking around to hear whatever Joel’s response would have been, Michael pushes past him and heads further into the clamoring of bodies, keeping an eye out for his friends. He’s already planning on how he’ll complain about the fact that he’s a hundred percent sure he has a headache now to the group when a thought occurs to him that has the blood draining from his face. He stops and turns on his heel, looking up at the building with wide, deer-in-headlights eyes.

Geoff’s postcards.

Geoff’s postcards are still in the building.

The building that firemen are inside because it’s on fire somewhere within, even when no smoke is visible yet.

Even if everyone else is outside kicking around in the parking lot, the postcards are still stuck in there waiting for him like always. No one would have been there to grab them or would have even thought to get them for him. When you hear a fire alarm going off the first thought in your head isn’t, “Oh, let me go next door and grab my friend’s things so they don’t burn.”

Which means they’re burning. All of them. The material of each card curling in on themselves, sizzling and popping while fire plays at each word, each sentiment, at every single dotted ‘I’ and crossed ‘T’ that Geoff wrote.

The postcards that Geoff has dedicated his time to writing — that must’ve taken ages, especially when you consider the lengths that some of them average up to now. The ones he’s spent money on to get and to send, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be watching how much he spends. The ones that Geoff still writes Michael’s address on, even though he never gets anything back. The ones that he pours himself into. The ones he’s made wrinkled and soft by palming them so often. The ones he’s carried with him from one state into another until he could send them to Michael.

Geoff’s postcards, the ones he writes just for Michael to read, are there under the coffee table in his apartment living room. They’re pressed like you would a flower you want to immortalize into the pages of his photo album, the bind wrinkled from the many times he’s flipped through it now. That’s where they are. In a photo album.

Possibly the most fucking flammable thing in his apartment, and that’s where he put Geoff’s postcards so carelessly.

And they’re Geoff’s postcards, but they’re also his.

They’re the postcards that Michael has read every single day, even if that means he’s had to go back and read the ones from the previous weeks when he hasn’t received a new one for some time. The postcards that he hasn’t shown to anyone else past that one instance with Ray. The postcards that he’s memorised. The postcards that he treasures more than anything else. _His_ postcards.

And it’s not just the postcards either.

Michael feels around the insides of his pockets without looking away from the building, patting the outsides when he comes up with nothing just to be sure.

The picture of Geoff, the one Michael keeps folded and tucked up in his wallet, is _also_ in the building, because Michael didn’t think he would need it. And he knows exactly where it is, because he very consciously tapped it with his index and middle fingers while passing its spot on the kitchen island on his way out of the door. He could have grabbed it. He could have picked it up and slipped it into his pocket, easy as that, but he didn’t.

And now it’s inside.

Burning.

The only things he has to remind himself that this whole thing with Geoff has been real are inside of his apartment. Both gone. Probably already being burned along with everything else he has in his apartment.

And it should really say something about him that the first thing he worries about isn’t his things, his clothes or the cactus he struggles to keep alive or the gag gift of a swear jar that Lindsay bought him for his birthday — no, it’s the postcards and his wallet picture of Geoff.

How typical, really, considering his ability to latch onto any show of concentrated attention on just him.

And he knows that there’s no point in even worrying about it now, because there’s nothing he can do about it anymore. It’s out of his hands. He knows this. He does. But it’s cold outside and everyone is mumbling to each other about their Thanksgiving plans and how they need to be awake in only a few more hours to start cooking and okay...

Okay. So maybe it’s irrational, right? Maybe it’s the dumbest god damn idea he’s ever had and maybe he should just sit back with a mimosa in hand and let the fire department handle this while he counts the insurance money he’ll get from this. That would be the smart thing to do, right?

Abso-fucking-lutely. That’s a hundred percent right, and _yet_.

And yet there he is, letting out a trembling breath and visibly shaking himself, because he’s going to do it. It’s dumb, probably more than a little reckless, and something that he’s only ever seen happen in movies, but he figures the adrenaline will keep him going.

And that’s how he finds himself breaking through the crowd and stepping out onto the grass, but he doesn’t even make it to the door of apartment before a cold hand grabs his wrist, fingers slipping under his sleeve. Michael jerks to a stop and turns, not even surprised to see Ray behind him, Penny in one arm while the other is outstretched to keep him from running inside the building.

“Yo, Michael, where’s the fire?” Ray jokes and Michael knows that any other time he’d laugh, but right now the only thing he can think about is the rate at which postcards burn.

“Ray,” he says back flatly, and there must’ve been a whole sentence that got lost along the way, because he thinks he meant to say more than that.

Probably something that wasn’t, _“Hey, Ray! I wasn’t about to storm into this here burning building and get Geoff’s postcards because I’m fucking fixated on one person somewhere out there in the world who doesn’t even know who I am or that I exist. And no, man, that totally wouldn’t have been the biggest instance of stupidity I’ve ever had in my life. Don’t take this as some red flag or something you should be looking out for. This is normal human behavior.”_

Yeah. Because he’d believe any of that.

Ray makes a face, looking from the building to Michael and back and forth a few more times. He drops his hand from Michael’s wrist and holds Penny closer to his chest, bouncing her in his arms in what Michael is only assuming is supposed to be a comforting motion as the alarm cuts off suddenly.

“Dude,” Ray says, slightly stilted, “were you or were you not just about to _‘Hulk smash!’_ your way into the complex?”

“No, _Ray_ , I wasn’t,” Michael lies lamely through his chattering teeth.

He huffs and can only look back at Ray confidently for a few seconds before he has to turn away from the disbelieving look on Ray’s face. He counts to five in his head before he slyly checks out of the corner of his eye to see if Ray is still leveling him with that ‘ _I call bullshit’_ look of his.

He is.

When it’s made abundantly clear that Michael isn’t going to say anything first, Ray rolls his eyes.

“Just so we’re both on the same page here, you were totally about to run into the building and try and strong-arm the fire out, right? Like, that’s not up for dispute or anything.”

Michael groans, already gearing up for the fight that’s about to happen, because he’s definitely still going to go inside.

“Ray, come on.”

“No, no, I just wanted to check and see if you really were as stupid as I thought and you know what? All sources point to yes. But there’s no point, dude. There’s no fire. But I gotta say, that heroic, caveman-like, ‘fire no match for strong man’ schtick of yours was really doing it for me for a minute there. Like, keep going, man, I’m close.”

He blinks once, ever so slowly, and then turns to look Ray in the face while Ray makes a vague ‘continue’ motion with his hand. And it’s clear that Ray’s trying to make him laugh, because his face is probably showing how much of a mess he is right about now, but he probably wouldn’t be able to crack a smile even if he wanted to.

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m _saying_ , that you were totally about to go all Mickey’s Fire Brigade on me and I was ten seconds from blast off in my pants here. Penny would’ve been horrified.”

“Stop talking about your dick while holding Meg’s dog,” he gripes offhandedly. Then, “But back up a bit: you said—” he pauses to look behind himself to where a fireman has just walked out of the building looking relatively unperturbed, though mildly annoyed “—you said there’s no fire?”

“Yup, no fire. Some idiots on the first floor burned something and the alarm went off. Guess some people like to start their Thanksgiving turkeys extra early, huh? But seriously, dude, what were you gonna do? Punch the fires out? I mean, that's kind of doing it for me too, but I can’t promote that kind of dumbass behavior.”

Michael stands there while Ray starts to ramble and the whole time he’s berating himself inside his head for getting so worked up, and then for almost making one of the dumbest moves in his whole twenty-eight years of life. Seriously, you can’t top going inside of a (thought to be) burning building while very decidedly _not_ being a firefighter on the list of Dumb Things To Do with anything else.

He shakes his head and steps away from the apartment, Ray following close to his side as they head back into the crowd.

“What were you heading in there for, anyway? Waluigi?” Waluigi is the name of the cactus Ray got him when he decided Michael needed something else to busy himself with other than strange homeless guys who send him postcards. Michael wasn’t the one who picked out the name. “I’m touched.”

Michael doesn’t say anything, opting for the smart maneuver of not lying, but also not telling the truth so as to keep Ray from turning on the condescending ‘ _I know better than you’_ tone he gets whenever postcards are mentioned. He doesn’t seem deterred by Michael’s silence at all.

“Personally I’d have went in for Meat Spin.” At Michael’s snort Ray clarifies needlessly, “That’s my fleshlight’s name. Jack was a big help while picking it out.” Michael hates that he honestly can’t tell if Ray’s joking or not when he deadpans like that. “Anyway, it’s good to know that one of us thinks about the things that really matter. I mean, can you believe Lindsay and Meg grabbed the animals first? Wow, right? Way to have your priorities all fucked up.”

Ray has started leading him now, moving ahead of him and taking Michael to the very back of the cluster of people.

“You know I heard someone say that the guys who made the alarm go off were making popcorn? Like, shit, dude, I can’t even drive but at least I know how to make popcorn. Imagine burning popcorn at six in the morning on Thanksgiving day. Not something you make on the stove but a microwaveable snack. What kind of idiot does that?”

“Uh, that’d be this kind of idiot,” a voice confesses from out of nowhere.

Michael and Ray both pause to look to the side of them where a short guy with blond, flat, medium-length hair and an anime T-shirt stands next to a tall guy with messy brown hair and a serious case of Apathy Beard that Michael admires. They’re both staring at Ray, Penny, and him. Michael makes an educated guess that the short one is the one who said that, as he’s the only one who looks embarrassed.

“I’m, uh, I’m Kerry.”

And he was correct.

The other guy introduces himself unprompted and while not looking even a tiny bit sheepish, smiling wide and full of mirth, “And I’m Miles and I’m so sorry I let dear Kerry here try to make the popcorn for once. I swear it’ll never happen again.”

“Ehhh.” Kerry shrugs. “It’ll probably happen again.”

“Well at least you’re honest,” Ray says.

The tall guy, Miles, steps forward and bends down slightly, hands on his knees as he stares at Penny, whose tail starts wagging at the sudden attention.

“Let’s not focus on K-Shaw’s complete lack of understanding for what ‘microwave on high for two minutes’ means — which is just predictable, really, considering the state of his ramen-based dietary habits—”

“Hey! You can’t just say that! I’m sensitive,” Kerry interrupts Miles who continues on undeterred, making Ray snort.

“—and let’s focus on this—” cue the annoying baby talk voice “—cute little puppy. Who’s a good puppy? Who is? Aw. Aren’t you just the cutest. I just want to take you home, huh?”

Penny slaps her paws on Ray’s arm, wiggling like she wants to jump out of Ray’s arms and lick all over Miles’s face even though he’s a complete stranger to her. Michael rolls his eyes.

“All right, cool it, Ace Ventura,” Michael says, tone clipped, putting a hand on Miles’s shoulder to get him to back up. “If you get Penny any more excited she’ll pee all over Ray.”

“Oh, dude, thanks I totally forgot she does that,” Ray says appreciatively, patting Michael’s arm. “Anyway, great talk, but we should probably head back to Penny’s actual owner now, who’s probably worried about her.”

Miles nods, standing back up fully. “Right, man, that’s cool. Sorry for making your dog almost pee on you.”

“Hey, no worries, she pees on at least one person a day, it’s cool. I’ve adapted.”

“Gross,” Kerry says while laughing.

“It’s okay, Ray’s into it. This guy,” Michael jokes while sticking his thumb out to Ray, “ _huge_ fan of golden showers.”

“Think you’re getting me confused with Gavin again. I’m the Puerto Rican one with the dank memes, Michael.”

Michael shrugs. “Well you’re both skinny fucks so it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

“Gavin?” Kerry prompts curiously, clearly wanting to keep the conversation going.

“A friend of ours,” Ray clarifies. “You’ve probably heard him shrieking before when he gets in fights with this guy—” he nudges Michael with his elbow. “He’s British.”

“Oh, is that the guy who ran out of the apartment the other day while gagging? Tall and, like, wearing a shirt that was three sizes too small?” Miles asks.

Michael snorts loudly, nodding. “ _Yup_. That’s Gavin. Shops in the kids’ department and looks like a twink with a beard. You’re laughing, but I’m serious! Every single shirt he owns is like a fuckin’ child’s small.”

“I’ve talked to him before, I think!” Kerry says excitedly at the prospect of a common thread between them while Miles is still losing it over the kids’ department comment. “He dropped his phone while passing by my apartment and when I opened the door he was muttering to himself because he broke the screen on his phone.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t believe in phone cases,” Ray says.

“Who doesn’t believe in phone cases?” Miles manages to ask as he titters and tries to hold himself back from laughing when Kerry throws his hands up in defeat, his nose scrunched up as he grins.

“Babies,” Michael informs him, shaking his head in similar disgust, “that’s who.”

Kerry laughs, smiles wide, and then says, “You guys are cool, we should all hangout sometime. I promise I won’t burn popcorn next time and Miles won’t harass your dog.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Kerry,” Miles interrupts, making Kerry snicker under his breath.

“Again, not my dog,” Ray says with emphasis, “but sure, man. We’re on the second floor and Michael’s door is almost always open when we’re all hanging out, so you guys can join us any time. We can all gang up on Gavin when he’s there, too.”

“Yeah, I’d totally be down for that,” Miles agrees, Kerry nodding along with him at his side.

They exchange numbers, Michael laughing when he sees that Kerry uses an old Motorola flip phone instead of an Android (like Ryan) or an iPhone (like literally everyone else who’s not in a geriatric ward). Afterwards they wave themselves off and don’t even get the chance to find the rest of the group before superintendent Hullum’s voice rings loud through the crowd. Both he and Ray turn to see Hullum holding a megaphone to his mouth by the apartment complex’s sign by the door.

“False alarm, there’s no fire, just some burnt popcorn.” The judgement in Hullum’s voice is thick as he stares at the crowd and Michael’s eyes follow Hullum’s line of sight to where Kerry and Miles stand, Kerry rubbing his neck sheepishly. “The building’s been cleared of smoke. Everyone file back in in an orderly fashion and get some sleep. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Sorry about the disturbance,” Hullum finishes with a wave. He hands the megaphone over to a firefighter who shakes his hand and then departs with the rest of the firefighters and the truck.

“Well. Guess we could just wait here until Meg finds us?” Ray suggests, resting his cheek on Penny’s head and obscuring his words slightly.

“Nah, think we should probably go to them.”

They find them pretty quickly, Meg talking to Gavin and Ryan, both Free and Willy in Ryan’s arms and squirming to get out, meowing loudly. Meg’s hand is on Gavin’s arm and as he and Ray get closer they can hear Meg apologizing on behalf of Free for scratching him.

Michael is so glad he doesn’t have any dumb cats to deal with.

“Hey,” he greets Meg with a wave, who turns to him and — before Michael can say anything else — rushes over to him and wraps her arms around his neck tightly so she can bury her face in his shoulder. She pulls back after a second (in which Michael stands rigidly still like a statue because he’s really not a fan of hugging in general) and pats his cheek softly.

“Where were you, Michael?! We thought you were a goner! I was worried I’d have to find another lactose intolerant buddy to steal skim milk from when I’m out.”

“Wow, I can’t believe you’re just using me for my milk,” Michael says flatly.

“Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Seriously, though, where were you? Lindsay and Gavin were freakin’ out.”

“Yeah, Lindsay’s _‘Hey, asshole, are you dead?’_ text really screamed how worried she was. And Gavin didn’t even bother to send anything.”

“He was calling from Jack’s phone, his died,” Meg assures him. “And you know Lindsay, she likes to play it cool. Remember when she busted her lip on the table and didn’t even complain even when she was crying? Or when she was getting the stitches for it?”

“Right, yeah. She’s a trooper. But, uh,” he looks around in confusion, “where are Jack and Lindsay anyway? And Margaret?”

“Oh, they took Margaret to the store. The noise was really loud and she was getting sick from it, so I guess she decided she wanted to go get a few more things for Thanksgiving dinner and they went to the twenty-four hour Wal-Mart on the east side. They should be back in thirty minutes tops and then you know Margaret’s going to be enlisting all of us in the cooking process.”

“Fuck. Right, yeah. I forgot about that. I haven’t even slept yet,” he admits, ignoring the sudden concerned expression that passes over Meg’s face. “I was kind of hoping to just hole up in my room, eat Chinese takeout, play video games, and pass out on the living room floor.”

“Wow. Living the dream, huh?” Meg asks, voice steeped in sarcasm.

He shrugs. “It’s a living.”

“Well, hey, I’ll cover for you if you want. I’m sure you can get at least four hours in before she and Jack burst in to use that Crock-Pot she gave you. Though I think Jack wanted us all to hang out at his place today? Jack loves hosting parties and stuff. And you’d be an idiot if you thought Margaret would let you get out of having Thanksgiving with the rest of us. She’s like this guy Burnie I know from work, always making sure you have lunch or he’ll go out and buy some for you.”

“I can’t really say no, can I?”

“Absolutely not.”

He shrugs, hands out. “Then I guess you’ll see me there.”

“Sweet. Can’t wait to go ham on some turkey and beat everyone else in Mario Party with ya’,” she says, punching him playfully in the arm with her fist. “But you should go talk to Gavin before you head up and go to sleep. He really was worried about you. It was kind of cute.”

As if on cue, Ray finally comes back from where he had roamed over to talk to Ryan and shuffles Penny from his arms to Meg’s and Michael decides to find Gavin. It takes him a minute, because Gavin’s off to the side — he must’ve wandered away from Ray and Ryan so he wasn’t the third wheel — and Michael heads over to him and notes that Gavin’s not even shivering despite not wearing a jacket, probably used to the cold from living in England.

He stands next to Gavin quietly for a second, watching the line to get in the apartment thin out and inwardly laughing at how Gavin seems to be giving him the silent treatment like a scorned wife. He turns after a second and pointedly bumps into a very stiff and tense Gavin gently with his shoulder.

“Hey, shithead, heard you were worried about me,” he says leadingly.

Gavin sniffles loudly, his nose red from the cold and running. “Don’t know what you’re on about.”

Gavin’s hands are stuffed in the pockets of his ironic American flag pajama bottoms (Lindsay bought them for Gavin, but once Michael thought about buying a pair for Gavin that looked almost exactly the same, because apparently everyone in the group enjoys ribbing Gavin about his British-ness). His steely eyes are staring determinedly ahead of him instead of looking at Michael, which Michael thinks is a bit childish.

Gavin’s totally pouting like a bratty three-year-old who’s having a strop because he wasn’t allowed to get a Kid’s Meal with one of those cool X-ray toys. Except he’s twenty-seven and an adult and, really, Michael shouldn’t find that nearly as endearing as he does.

“Sure you don’t.” He rolls his eyes at Gavin’s feigned ignorance. “I was out running, sorry I got you worried. I should’ve been paying better attention to my phone, but I was just all in my head because of stupid stuff.”

The apology seems to do the trick, Gavin’s shoulders dropping easily from where they’d climbed up to his ears and his jaw slackening. Gavin’s never been one to hold a grudge for too long so long as he’s not the one who has to apologize. He’s an asshole like the rest of them, but there’s a reason why he’s objectively Margaret’s favorite. He’s a good kid.

“You all right, then?” Gavin asks mildly, looking him over like he thinks Michael might have been all burned up and choking from smoke inhalation.

Michael’s glad Gavin can’t tell that his heart beats easier just by being around him and seeing how much he also freaked out because of the fire alarm. It’s good to know Gavin’s got his back, too.

“Yeah, boy, I’m real good. Got a pretty nasty headache going on right now, but it’s all cash and aces. I just came back from my run when I noticed all the calls and stuff. Music was kinda loud so I didn’t notice.”

Gavin nods like that’s an acceptable answer, sniffling again and looking away as he rubs at his nose.

“Next time just answer the sodding phone, yeah?” And if Gavin sounds at all like he was more than a little worried, Michael doesn’t comment on it.

Michael snorts. “Yes, _dear_. Can we go inside now before our collective three balls freeze off?”

“All right now, calm down, no need to get personal,” Gavin tells him, but he shuffles forward anyway, stuffing his hands back into the pockets of his pajama bottoms, and Michael follows, waving at the rest of the group to come along.

But then there’s a noise. Not necessarily a loud one, but a small clattering sound like bottles breaking and then the softest whine he’s ever heard in his life, almost like a small animal crying.

Michael stalls, lagging behind the group at first, and then he just stops completely, staring at the opening of the alleyway his fire escape looks out onto. He glances at the group, Ryan the last in line and gently closing the door to the complex behind himself without a glance backwards to check if Michael’s still following him.

“I’m not going to be the dumb fuck that goes towards the loud noise in every scary movie literally ever,” Michael assures himself aloud, turning back to the door and taking one single step away from the alley.

Except there’s that noise again.

And it’s like this: he was literally about to run into an allegedly burning building less than ten minutes ago, so the fact that he’s started walking towards the noise really isn’t the dumbest thing he’s ever done now. Though it’s pretty fucking dumb.

When he’s standing in the opening of the alley he doesn’t see anything suspicious like someone being mugged or a group of kids breaking bottles because that’s what kids find fun to do when they’re assholes. The only thing he can see that’s out of order is a fidgeting trash can rolling around on its side under the fire escape he sits out on whenever he feels the need to be introspective.

“Great. Fort Lee has fucking rats now? New York isn’t even that close to here,” he mutters to himself with a shake of his head.

He kicks at a can of Diet Coke (definitely Ryan’s, Michael’s thinks when he hears the rattle from inside the can, because only Ryan takes the time to carefully peel the aluminum tab off every Coke can and drop it inside) that’s lying on the ground with the toe of his shoe. The can skitters across the ground and hits the lid of the trashcan with a loud bang and for a second Michael almost expects a flood of rats to overwhelm the tightly shut lid of the trash and come spilling out from inside of it like he’s in a horror movie.

Instead, though, he hears that soft whining noise again, a wounded and helpless noise that echoes throughout the trashcan. Which a rat would never make. Or a mouse. Or any other small rodent. Actually, if anything the noise sounded a lot like a mewl.

“No,” he says immediately, putting his hands in the air. “Nope. I’m leaving.”

Except he takes a traitorous step forward because his brain just can’t help but actively work against him. And then another. And another. And then he’s standing in front of the trashcan and squatting down, grabbing the top of the lid and lifting it up slightly. There’s that noise again and Michael regrets everything, because that is definitely a meow.

He peers into the trash, but the only thing he can see is a dark shape at the bottom. He sighs, putting the trashcan back on its side, pulling off the lid to drop it on the ground, and then steps back. It takes a second, the alleyway quiet as he waits, and then Michael watches as a very tiny kitten walks almost all the way out of the trashcan before looking around cautiously.

“Who the fuck put a cat in the trash?” he asks waspishly to no one in particular, watching with his arms akimbo as the kitten turns to look at him.

For a second he thinks it’s going to run, scared off by the sudden sight of him standing there, but instead it meows loudly, its eyes closing with the effort it puts into sounding as defiant and scary as possible while being approximately as big as the palm of his hand.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I’m leaving, damn. Fucking cat,” he says with a roll of his eyes, turning around and leaving the alley.

And then there’s another meow.

Michael pauses, now standing in the parking lot again, and blinks. He turns his head to check over his shoulder and he can see the kitten just a few steps behind him, pressed along the side of the apartment building like it’s trying to hide itself and camouflage into the bricks of the complex like a clever butterfly.

Now that it’s out in the light instead of in the dark alley Michael can see that its fluffy fur is predominantly a light cream color that’s split up in sections of sooty black along the center of its round face and the backs of its ears, but then its tail and the line of its fur just above its white colored paws is a lightly dusted brown instead of black. There’s dirt and mud on its paws and some that’s matting its fur together along the base of its tail, indicating just how neglected it must be. The kitten’s not particularly gaunt looking, though, so perhaps it’s a bit crafty in how it gets its food, which would explain how it landed in the trash but not how the lid got on it.

It blinks at him and freezes when it realizes he’s no longer moving, its tail down and barely moving.

“No,” he tells the kitten before he starts walking again.

He’s standing on the front step to the apartment when he stops again, his hand on the door handle to the complex. He looks down at his feet and the kitten is sitting there, just a few inches away from him, staring up at him with wide, sapphire blue eyes. It blinks slowly at him and Michael sets his jaw.

“I said no. This isn’t going to happen. Fuck off.”

The kitten makes a huffing sound through its nose, but otherwise doesn’t move from where it’s sitting. Michael nods once, opens the door, and then goes inside. The second the door closes behind him he can hear the scratching. It’s like a horror movie scene then, Michael hyper-aware that the kitten is behind him pawing at the clear glass panelling at the side of the door while he walks further into the complex with the intent to walk up the stairs and refuses to look back.

He doesn’t even make it up the first flight of stairs before he sighs with a roll of his eyes and turns to go back down to the first floor, the mewling sound coming from outside too loud to ignore.

He stops and looks down at the glass, right where the kitten is up on its hind legs with both soiled paws leaving streaks on the glass as it tries to get his attention. It takes a second for it to notice that he’s standing right there, but when it does it drops back to its back legs and sits, waiting.

“You’re so fucking lucky it’s cold outside, you rat fuck.”

He unhappily opens the door and the kitten walks in with an almost regal air around it before it sits down right next to his foot without making a noise. He puts a defeated hand over his face and groans, then bends down and picks the kitten up, holding it to his chest as he quickly shuffles up the flight of stairs and into his apartment before anyone notices that he has a kitten in his arms.

He drops the kitten onto the floor of his apartment the second the door is closed behind him and gives it a stern look, pointing his finger at it.

“Listen up, asshole,” he addresses the kitten seriously. “You’re going to stay right here while I go to sleep. Tomorrow, after Thanksgiving when the shelters are open, I’m taking you there and you can fuck off, got it? You’re not staying here. You’re only inside because it’s fucking freezing outside and supposed to snow, too. That’s it. This isn’t going to become a thing. I don’t like cats and you’re not even cute.” The kitten blinks, sitting perfectly amicably while looking up at him. “Or tiny. You’re not tiny at all. And you don’t look anything like the cat my mom used to have or nothin’.”

Michael sniff loudly. The kitten’s ear flicks, fluffy tail curling and sweeping over the hardwood of Michael’s floor. Michael figures it’s the best answer he’ll get and nods, marching into his bedroom as he strips down to his boxers and then falls face-first onto his bed.

The last coherent thought he has before falling asleep is that he should’ve closed the damn door, because he can feel the sudden soft pressure of the little pink cushions of the kitten’s paws pressing along the back of his thigh as it climbs over him without any consideration for whether or not he’s asleep. It stands on his lower back for just a moment before it shifts and then there’s the warm weight of the kitten pressing to the naked center of his back as it curls up there, the long fur of its tail ticklish where it lays over his side and is almost enough to make him giggle if it weren’t for the fact that he’s too tired to move let alone make noises.

He begrudgingly sinks further into the mattress, letting out a muffled grumble just to show the kitten just how little he’s okay with the current sleeping situation (though it’s almost as if he’s imitating the tiny noise the kitten made earlier), and then lets the drooping weight of drowsiness take him under.

When he wakes up, however many hours later, it’s to the alarming sound of Gavin gasping from another room in his apartment and going, “Kitty-kitty!” in what Michael assumes might just be Gavin’s highest vocal register. Like, he really got up there with that one.

Michael groans into his bed, digging his face into his pillow. His limbs feel all cold and brittle from forgetting to cover himself up before falling asleep and he shoves his arms under himself for warmth, icy hands leaching as much heat as possible from his inner thighs.

He can hear the door to his apartment shut, loud clattering noises, a light and feminine voice shushing Gavin loudly, and then there’s the sound of plastic bags being placed on the floor. Michael finds himself remembering with no small amount of reluctance that today’s a holiday and that his entire late twenties revolves around him never being left alone, it seems.

He lays in bed for just long enough that he realizes that it’s impossible for him to sleep when he can hear Meg telling Gavin that he needs to stop being loud or he’ll wake Michael up (too late) and, “For heaven’s sake, Gav, can you put down the kitten and focus on helping me find this damned potato peeler!”

Michael stumbles groggily out of his room and into the main room, still shirtless but at least he took the time to haphazardly shift from one leg to the other as he shuffled his way into his sweatpants. He stares from the doorway of his room, wide-eyed and admittedly a little annoyed, at where Gavin is using both arms to hold the kitten from the trashcan before around its ribs like a ragdoll, its tiny hind legs dangling helplessly in the air. He’s got his entire face buried in the fur at the back of the kitten’s neck, which is just disgusting considering how dirty it must be from being a stray.

“You’re probably breathing in all the germs and feces on that cat’s fur with that huge fuckin’ nose of yours,” Michael informs Gavin lightly as he ambles over, tone not even holding a hint of the rudeness that his words are supposed to carry.

Gavin’s face jolts back from the kitten, but instead of looking grossed out by the prospect of Michael’s words he looks positively _radiant_.

“Michael!” Gavin whisper-shouts in excitement, sounding mesmerized. “She’s got mittens!”

“‘She?’” Michael parrots in question, now standing next to where Gavin is at the end of the island that separates the kitchen from the main room. He notes that Meg is unhappily searching through his cabinets just under the sink, her curled hair forming curtains around her face as she mutters unintelligibly to herself.

“The kitty!” Gavin explains with a raise of his elbows. The kitten’s front paws stick out into the air in front of Gavin like it’s begging for help. “She’s got little white mittens! It’s so seasonal.”

“It’s not December just yet, Gavin.”

“No, but it’s close to it.”

“I guess,” he concedes with an indifferent shrug.

“Oh thank god,” Meg pipes up at Michael’s voice, turning around and pressing her hands to the kitchen island. “ _Please_ ,” she beseeches like her whole life depends on it, “take that kitten away from Gavin so he’ll help me find this damn potato thing for these—” she gestures with the tilt of her chin towards a bag of potatoes resting on the island “—potatoes.”

“Or I could just tell you that it’s in the basket behind those Cornflakes on the top of the fridge,” Michael suggests mildly as an alternative.

He watches with amusement as Meg beams at him before hopping up on the counter next to the fridge, wavering worryingly for only a second until she grabs a handle on one of the cabinets beside her, and then whoops triumphantly as she grabs the potato peeler from the top of the fridge with her other hand.

“Cheers,” Gavin thanks him as he watches Meg scramble down off of the counter.

“Give me the cat.”

The look that washes over Gavin’s face is utter, heartbreaking betrayal. “But, Michael!”

“No. Give me the cat. You woke me up, asshole, you don’t deserve to be happy right now.”

Meg whistles lowly from where she’s now standing at the sink, holding the potato peeler out under the running tap, washing the dust off. “Wow, Michael,” she says with heart, the line of her shoulders almost as judgemental as her voice. “That’s pretty harsh.”

Gavin hands the kitten over sadly, but not before rubbing his nose at the soft fur between its ears. Michael takes the kitten into his arms like you’re supposed to, one hand under its back legs and the other holding its front legs up a bit higher. The kitten starts purring almost immediately and Michael grins toothily at the petulant frown Gavin puts on, always a sore loser.

“Well that’s just not right, is it?”

“The cat liking me more than you isn’t right?” Michael can’t help but ask, grinning fully now.

“Obviously she only prefers you because she knew you first. She only just met me,” Gavin says with a self-important sniff.

“Or it’s because I’m not holding it like it’s an infant.”

“She was perfectly fine with how I was holding her!”

“Yeah, okay,” Michael manages around a snort. “Or it was just too terrified to move. You probably scared it with your dumb accent.”

“Stop calling her an ‘it.’”

“I don’t trust you for one second to know whether it’s a boy or girl.”

“There’s no bollocks.”

“You looked at my cat’s balls?” Michael prompts childishly for lack of a better retort. It seems he’s in a ‘ _bicker with Gavin’_ mood this morning.

“Obviously, you dolt.” Michael’s brows pull together and he’s about to call Gavin a few choice words in return for Gavin’s one insult, but then Gavin’s rushing to ask, “So she is your kitten, then? She didn’t just get in from one of the windows?”

“Get in from the windows? How would that happen? You expect the cat to have just _scaled_ up an entire floor to get through one of the windows on my _second floor_ apartment or something else that’s just as dumb?”

“Like Spider-Cat,” Meg laughs to herself, slouched over the island and peeling one of the potatoes from the large bag next to her elbow, the rinds from the potato in her hand falling down onto a plastic bag she laid out on the top of the island. “ _Spider-Cat, Spider-Cat, does whatever a Spider-Cat does. Can she swing from a web? No she can’t, she’s a cat. Look out, here comes the Spider-Cat._ ”

“You’re being a right mingy prick today,” Gavin says to him instead of answering.

“Yeah? You shouldn’t have woken me up if you wanted me to be nice.”

“But I didn’t! I was being quiet! You woke yourself up.”

Michael scowls at him for a long second and Gavin — feeling obviously just as mingy — scrunches up his nose smugly, making that stupid expression that he knows aggravates Michael.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ punch you in the nose.”

“Can’t. You’re holding the little sausage,” Gavin says while still making that awfully smug face. Michael also hates that he calls the kitten ‘sausage’ for whatever reason, especially when it’s not even remotely sausage shaped.

“I will drop this cat so fucki—”

“All right! Calm down!” Gavin shouts as he puts his hands up in defeat.

“The both of you fight like my mom and aunt do,” Meg tells them, shaking her head in exasperation.

“Has your mom ever socked your aunt in her jaw for being a shithead before?” Michael asks, shooting a glare at Gavin who takes a small step back from him just in case.

“I don’t think so…” she trails off consideringly, humming. “I’ll ask her when I talk to her on the phone in a bit. She’ll be calling soon.”

That drains the fight right out of Michael and he groans, the kitten startling in his arms at the low register of it. The kitten looks up at his face with her wide eyes, blinking ever-so slowly in confusion.

“My mom’s probably going to make me talk to all my relatives on the phone today,” he complains as he slumps slightly into Gavin’s shoulder, already dreading all the people she’ll ask if he remembers over the phone before making him talk to them no matter what the answer is.

“Yeah? My mum’s not going to ring me at all.”

“That’s because you guys don’t have Thanksgiving,” Meg reminds him as if he forgot.

“We should though, right? All the food we could be eating and all that.”

“What,” Michael starts with a laugh, “beans on toast? Cheese on a cracker? Sounds delicious.”

“We eat more than just beans on toast, Michael.”

“It was a joke, dumbass,” he says with a roll of his eyes, looking towards Meg as if to say, _‘Can you believe this guy’s our friend?’_

“Wasn’t very funny then, was it? Couldn’t even tell you were making a joke.”

“All right,” Michael says, voice clipped. “I’m going to go get the mail and when I get back you better’ve thought of a good reason for me not to kick you in the nuts. Sorry,” he corrects quickly, “one nut.”

Gavin squawks while Meg laughs boisterously, but Michael doesn’t hang around long enough to hear the way Gavin whines that it’s not funny. He jogs down the stairs quickly but carefully, making sure not to trip or accidentally let go of the kitten, which he totally forgot he was even holding.

When he’s at the mailboxes that line the wall next to the entrance of the complex, he carefully shields the kitten from the hallway by pressing his shoulder to the mailboxes and dwarfing the kitten in his arms, just in case superintendent Hullum decides to show up.

“I’m going to have to wash my hands after this,” he mutters mostly to himself but also to the kitten, almost as if he’s trying to guilt the kitten for being so filthy.

When he opens his mailbox (while very skillfully balancing the kitten against his chest with one arm, he’d like to point out), it’s with no small amount of sheer excitement that he notes that there’s only one solitary postcard in it. No clutter of bills or ads for smokes. Just one singular postcard that dashes Michael’s heart to bits on sight alone. He picks it up in his free hand and cants his head.

 

The postcard’s cover seems to be the image of a busy street going down on a hill; it has to be somewhere in a highly populated town, lampposts lining the street as well as a littering of parked cars along the curb. The postcard has to be dated, wrinkles on the actual postcard itself and then classic looking cars in the picture on the card, olden style architecture making the buildings look like something you’d see while watching Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Trees line the sides of the cover art, swallowing some of the buildings up, and in the far distance on the postcard — just past the end of the road — appears to be a stretch of water, either a river or the sea, Michael’s not sure.

According to the label at the top of the bordered corner, the view in the postcard is of Water Street in Augusta, Maine.

He flips the card over in his hand, expecting something entirely too verbose just like the last postcard, but instead he’s met with nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s no actual writing but there is that symbol Geoff once wrote down ages ago of the two connecting circles. That’s it.

Nothing else other than some hoboglyph symbol after — what Michael is now realizing to be — over a month of time where nothing was sent. Actually, now that he’s really thinking about it, the whole month long hiatus from Geoff’s postcards happens to coincide with his utterly butchered sleeping habits.

Michael purses his lips at the postcard, thinking. Maybe Geoff forgot about him and that’s why it’s been so long. Or he could’ve broke his dominate hand and not been able to write. Or, hell, he might’ve just ran out of money and couldn’t afford to send a postcard. But then he would’ve explained the situation, surely. It wouldn’t have been that hard to do, right? So why didn’t he?

He looks down towards the kitten in his hand.

“Do you know what the fuck that means either or no?” The kitten doesn’t respond in any way other than to blink and Michael frowns. “Guess not.”

He turns back to the card and flips it back and forth curiously.

“Maybe he’s just busy. That makes sense, you know?” Michael’s quiet for a moment before he looks back at the kitten and then gets a grip, realizing how stupid he must look right now while talking to a kitten about a guy that doesn’t even know he exists. “And maybe I’m just talking to a fucking cat right now. I need to go back to sleep.” He glares at the kitten. “You know it’s basically your fault I’m awake right now, right?”

The kitten offers no regretful platitudes and Michael can’t say he’s shocked that a kitten doesn’t know what guilt is. Dogs would. A dog wouldn’t even be able to make eye contact because it’s so guilty, but then there’s this stupid kitten that’s just purring away in his arms and blinking slowly at him. It’s objectively cute, he thinks, but then immediately scratches that thought off the record. He hates cats. He doesn’t think they’re cute just because they purr and knead into his arm.

He sighs loudly and then stuffs the postcard into his back pocket, doing a bit of an awkward jig as he tries not to drop the kitten while moving around. He hears the complex’s entrance door swing open and freezes instinctively, like suddenly he’s a teenager again and he’s only just realized he forgot to take the meat out of the freezer so he could let it thaw on the counter right after hearing his mom pull into the driveway.

Thankfully, instead of Hullum or some other person who’ll rat him out for having a kitten walking in, Ray steps inside and Michael inwardly sighs in relief. Ray’s blowing hot air on his hands when he takes one look at where Michael’s guiltily clutching the kitten to his chest and stops everything he’s doing.

Ray raises his brows, cheeks pinkened from the outside cold, and asks incredulously, “Dude, did you get a kitten?”

“No,” Michael denies flatly. The kitten chooses that exact moment to nuzzle its face under Michael’s chin unhelpfully and Michael kind of wants to feed himself into a woodchipper feet first.

“Uh… okay,” Ray hedges carefully, brow furrowing now. “You do know that’s a kitten, right? You don’t think it’s some fucked up type of squirrel or a large mouse or something?”

“Ray, we’re not doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Making this a thing. I don’t have a kitten.”

“Right…” he says slowly, leveling Michael with a no bullshit look. “Well. Maybe you don’t have a kitten, but I’m pretty sure that kitten is imprinted on you or some shit. It’s bunting you, dude. It loves you.”

“No,” Michael denies again, stubborn as ever, but his tone sounds like he’s already given up.

A scoff from Ray is thrown back at him almost immediately. “Love isn’t just something you can say no to like Gavin says no to getting sick.”

Michael lets out a derisive noise and a long exhale like his soul’s trying to drain right out of him to get away from this conversation. “It’s just staying until the animal shelter down the street is open again.”

Ray looks like he’s enjoying this way too much. “So you’re telling me you’re just going to have a kitten in your apartment for a whole day and you’re not expecting to get attached? Not even a little?”

“This cat’s not going to get me attached. I don’t like cats. I’m a dog person.”

Michael’s not sure who he’s trying to convince here.

“Yeah? Hey, Michael, quick question: Denial’s not just a river in Egypt, right?”

“Jesus Christ, Ray,” he says helplessly.

“It’s kneading your arm, dude. You’re its dad now, no take backs. You’re a little young to be a dad already, but I know a single parent group on Facebook and I’ll put the good word in for you. I’ll be crossing my fingers that you get in, man. They post minivan memes. I know you’ll start to appreciate that as you come into your new role as a father. I’ll even loan you a copy of _Big Daddy_ later.”

Michael glares at him, but otherwise lets the dad comments pass. “Does selective hearing just run in your family or what?”

“What’s that?” Ray says, bringing a hand up to his ear and mimicking a flip phone with his littlest finger and his thumb. “You’ll have to speak up, I’m wearing a towel.”

“I can’t even be mad at you when you make jokes as stupid as that. I just feel sorry for you.”

“Dude.” Ray shakes his head, pretending to pocket the imaginary phone. “The Simpsons? That’s what Homer says with the towel around his body? Come on, dude, I can’t believe you didn’t catch that.”

“Because I’d definitely know that,” he snarks back with an eyeroll.

“One of the best jokes on the show, but whatever. That’s fine. I thought we had a connection but I guess not. You don’t even get my references.”

“Did you even watch that episode or did you just read about it on _‘Know Your Meme’_ and decide it was good enough to use on me just now?”

Ray’s mouth twitches before he purses his lips. “No comment.”

“Caught red handed.”

“Yeah, whatever, at least I’m not pretending I don’t have a kitten when I very obviously have a kitten now. What’re you gonna name it?”

Michael groans up at the ceiling, a drawn-out “Oh my god,” leaving his mouth, sounding and looking a lot like a robot that’s about to self destruct. Ray steps closer to pat him on the shoulder.

“Chin up, dude,” Ray says nicely. “I’ll stick by your side through this adoption process. You just have to promise me that you’re not gonna name it something dumb like Spot.”

He glares at Ray sideways, eyes in slits. “You named my cactus Waluigi and you’re telling me Spot would be a stupid cat name? Waluigi, Ray. You named a fuckin’ plant after a Mario character that you only like ironically.”

“Do I, though? Maybe my love for Waluigi is real. You don’t know what we do in the dark.”

“Jesus, man, just get out of my way,” he groans loudly to hide the laugh he wants to let out, elbowing Ray in the side to get him to drop his hand off of his shoulder. “I need to get back to my room and punch Gavin in the dick. Or kick him. I don’t remember, but I was going to do something to his dick.”

Ray raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like a solid plan. You sure Jack’s okay with that, though?”

“He was being annoying,” Michael explains without _really_ explaining. “I’m going to kick him.”

“Sure. Yeah, I just need to check our mail and then I’m gonna go punch Ryan in the dick too. You know how it is. Couple things.”

“I hate you,” Michael lies as he starts climbing up the flight of stairs.

“Love ya’, bro,” Ray calls out to Michael’s back. “Can’t wait to find out the name you decide on when I come over for Thanksgiving. If there’s no Narvaez anywhere in the name then I know where are friendship truly lies in the dirt.”

By the time Michael’s back in his apartment he’s already thought of four separate names he’d give a pet. None of them involve Ray’s last name. The kitten jumps right out of his arms while he’s closing the door behind himself and he watches — with the same amount of reluctance that he had that morning when the kitten curled up on his back, he’d like to point out — as the kitten jumps up onto his couch and lays down after turning around in a circle once.

He stares at the kitten for a moment, quiet as he considers her presence on his couch and in his apartment. Then, with the same amount of tact that a howler monkey has while howling (read: none), Gavin whisper-shouts excitedly, “She looks like a loaf of bread!” right into Michael’s ear.

However, in lieu of making some annoyed comment at this, he finds himself saying around a loud snort, eyeing up the kitten thoughtfully, “More like a Twinkie.”

And that’s the exact moment he realizes that he’s screwed.

It’s also the exact moment he realizes that Gavin is standing right beside him. He gives Gavin one side-long glance before he reacts quickly, nailing Gavin right in the shin. He watches only for a second as Gavin’s whole face shifts into something pinched and sour before he heads towards the kitchen. The sound of Gavin almost cursing but stopping himself to abjectly groan in pain is enough to put a smile on his face as he looks to Meg and says, “Thanksgiving’s sure kicking off.”

•••

 **Searsport, ME**  
**December 10th, 2015**

_Hey, New Jersey. It’s been a while. My last postcard was November, wasn’t it? And before that it was October. At the risk of sounding like I’m pushing eighty and can’t get my grandkids to talk to me anymore, where does the time go? It moves so much faster when you get busier, doesn’t it? You probably didn’t even notice how long it’s been, though. After all you don’t actually read these, do you? Well, I guess I don’t really need you to anymore and even if you did read them at the beginning I probably lost you somewhere around card number ten._

_Anyway, if you can’t figure it out, I’ve stopped travelling for now. Maine pretty much made me its bitch and has trapped me in its beautifully cold clutches. You wouldn’t think or even dare to imagine it, but I’ve got an honest-to-god job now. Plus I’ve been staying in a motel for going on two months now. The full works of a functioning adult: a roof over your head and a nine-to-five. I even eat home cooked breakfast now. What can I say, your boy’s all grown up now. Go ahead and wipe those tears, New Jersey, ‘cause we finally did it._

_But don’t get your hopes up so quick, I’m still not sure I’m going to stay here for much longer. The place I’m at is actually where I work and don’t get freaked out or anything, but it’s called Bait’s Motel. Go ahead and let that chill run down your spine. You good? Is your spine chilled? Sweet. It’s not haunted by a creepy old lady and her son, so I’m not exactly expecting to be murdered any time soon. This place is just a small two star motel with owners that’re nice enough to let me stay and help out and that’s it. Not a particularly fulfilling place, but it’ll do for now. Especially considering my rent’s free in exchange for my head janitor/maid status. I can fold towels into swans now. I know, I know, please hold your applause. I’m kind of a big deal in the ‘ol motel business — everyone and their mother knows about this handsome Geoff guy’s towel skills. I’m a force to be reckoned with. I even do kids’ birthdays._

_Well, I guess that’s all I’ve got to say. I just figured I’d owe it to you to send a final postcard in case I decide to stay. Maine’s good. I’m good. Like, really good. This might just be the place for me and I’m okay with that. Finally. Geoff._

•••

 **Fort Lee, NJ**  
**December 11th, 2015**

_~~Sup, Geoff. You probably never expected to get mail—~~ _

“No, fuck, that sounds like I’m calling him some friendless loser,” Michael curses aloud, quickly crossing out what he just wrote before staring defeatedly at the shitty excuse for earnesty that is the now ruined New Jersey postcard before him.

He’s bent heavily over his living room’s coffee table, a stack of newly bought postcards next to his wrist, his laptop open in front of him and showing a Google page on ‘Bait's Motel in Searsport, Maine’ with a myriad of reviews and photos, and his kitten, Mogar (or Mowgli if you’re Gavin and refuse to call the kitten by its real name because you heard it wrong the first time and liked the one you misheard more and love pissing Michael off), is behind him at his left asleep on the couch.

This isn’t working. His muscles ache from how long he’s been in this position and he thinks his foot is asleep. He yawns into his shoulder, stretches, knuckles away the sleep from his eyes.

He lets out a frustrated growl, crumples up his postcard in his hands in a split-second moment of contempt, and shoots it halfway across the room before it falls a few inches short of the trashcan he was aiming for. He groans, aggravated and tense, and thumps his head back on the couch. Mogar startles from sleep, her head shooting up, the bell on her collar jingling, and her eyes go wide and alert before landing on Michael’s pathetic self. She twitches an ear and then lays her head back down on her paws, clearly done with Michael’s dramatics.

“Why does this have to be so hard?” he asks the universe.

The universe tells him to eat shit and die. He thanks the universe for all the help.

He’s always thought that being given the opportunity to reply back to Geoff would be a fucking awesome occasion, but now he’s sure that he couldn’t have been more wrong. He’s spent an hour now just trying to come up with a starter sentence. It’s not like he’s been tasked with writing out a thesis statement or anything, just a plain old greeting. An opening. A simple, _‘Oh, hey, Geoff, I’m Michael and I’ve read every single one of your postcards front to back and up and over!’_

Except he can’t just say that. That sounds obsessive. Well, it kind of _is_ obsessive and Geoff would probably think it’s pitiful that while he’s been out there travelling across the U.S. Michael’s been getting worked up about some dumb postcards. Michael himself even thinks it’s pitiful. _Ray_ thinks it’s pitiful. The word “pitiful” momentarily came alive and was self-aware and sentient long enough to change its definition in the dictionary and now there’s just a picture of him there. It’s probably not even a good picture, either. It might even be the picture of him when he was little holding up the art project he did about how much he loved Jesus. He’s that pitiful.

He blows out a noisy breath before scrubbing his hands roughly through his hair, irritated and seconds away from just calling it quits. It’s not like Geoff would even want a postcard back. Like Geoff said in his last postcard, he doesn’t even think Michael reads them anymore. Clearly he’s not expecting anything. It’s no skin off his back if Michael doesn’t send him a postcard or anything. He probably didn’t even mean anything by name dropping the place he’s at. He probably doesn’t even think Michael cares enough to search up the address to the motel he’s staying in. Plus, Michael’s not entirely sure that sending a postcard wouldn’t come off as creepy.

He rolls his head around on the couch for a moment, looking up at the ceiling while trying to clear his head. Geoff wouldn’t care though, right? He seems pretty relaxed in all of his postcards. Surely a reply back wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. And Geoff’s asked him questions before. Though, okay, maybe they could’ve just been rhetorical or questions he was actually just asking himself, but there was that one time he asked if Michael reads the postcards.

Like, that was definitely not rhetorical. That was a direct question.

He picks his head up, back straightening, and then he grabs his pen. He starts to twirl the pen over his knuckles, weaving it in and out of his fingers like he used to do back in school to keep his attention focused on not falling asleep. He grabs another postcard off the top of the pile he bought from the Walgreens down the road and sets it on the table before him.

He stares fixedly at the postcard for a long, wary moment, unable to conceive how he should go about this. He can’t really ask anyone for help on this. Well, he could ask Ray, but that would only blow up in his face. He’s so bad at this.

“Yo, Geoff,” he tries saying out loud to get a feel of things. He pulls a face. “Who am I, Miles? _Ray?_ I’m not a fuckin’ teenager, I can’t just say ‘yo’ like that. Sup is, like, a less still-going-through-puberty-ish way to say hello. I can say sup. That’s cool. _‘Sup.’_ That doesn’t sound like I’m trying too hard.”

The fact that he’s putting so much thought into a simple greeting probably means he’s trying way too hard. Michael is aware of this.

He clears his throat, tries again with, “Sup, Geoff. I’m, like, the guy you’ve been sending postcards to for the past year or whatever.” Michael nods along to what he’s saying. That sounds like something a normal person would say. “And then, like, I could be like, _‘I’ve been to Maine…’_ or somethin’ and then just keep going from there.”

He looks to Mogar for a consensus. Mogar is still sleeping. He nods to himself anyway like he got the answer he wanted in the gentle yet congested and labored breathing from Mogar (she’s got a bit of a cold and he maybe overreacted about it before Meg calmed him down by telling him Willy gets colds all the time).

He picks up his pen and starts writing again as he talks himself through it, trying to put himself in Geoff’s shoes. Imagines that he’s states away from home and needs someone to talk to before he goes a bit mad, wants something to help ease his mind, searching for companionship even when it’s not reciprocal.

Michael writes and then stops, starts over, presses his pen to another card before he misspells something and reaches for a new card, and then again, and again, and again he goes on like this. The business of writing, of thinking, of shifting uncomfortably for a better position to sit in every other second, of pulling back and re-reading what he’s written only to find it’s a bit rambly. He starts over again and again until he doesn’t have to anymore. He keeps writing word after word until he’s finished and the line of his littlest finger is covered in smeared ink and his wrist is cramping.

He stretches his wrists out, cracks his knuckles, and then the rest is history.

 **Fort Lee, NJ**  
**December 11th, 2015**

 _Sup, Geoff. So I guess you’ve got your answer now about whether or not anyone’s been reading the postcards you’ve been sending out for almost a year now or whatever. Like, case closed, man, that’s it. Question? Answered! I bet you sure as shit hope you never said anything embarrassing now, right? Don’t worry, Geoff, I can keep a secret even if you did. I’m reliable as hell. I get the Maine thing, by the way. I visited once when I was younger and the mountains were_ so _cash. I didn’t really get the chance to appreciate them or anything at the time because I was just a shit teenager back then. I think I’d like it there now if I ever visited._

_But I guess this must be your old apartment I live in, right? What a shithole, huh? ...I don’t know why I just wrote that, I actually like living here. I’ve started this postcard over a million fucking times now, though, so I’m not doing it again. We’re just going to roll with it (seriously, man, how the fuck do you write these things and make them so long?). Just pretend you didn’t read that._

_I’ve gotta ask, though, Geoff, were you the prick who left a bunch of glue and tape all over the bedroom closet? My OCD hates you for that, you fuck. Who uses glue AND tape to hang shit up? Do you know how long it took me to get the glue off the walls? Never mind the tape, but the glue? You’re an animal for that. A real freak of nature._

_Are you also the reason why there’s a huge fucking chip in the sink and why the lights over the bathroom mirror only work when the middle bulb is slightly loosened? You’re a real son of a bitch. I still haven’t fucking fixed that. I’m realizing now that you’ve kind of been the biggest pain in my ass since I moved here. Do you know how many times I’ve hit my gut on the towel rack because I couldn’t see anything without adjusting the light bulbs first? A fuckton. You owe me some serious cash money for the pain you’ve caused me._

_You know, I started writing this postcard out or whatever because I thought it’d be cool to let you know someone really has been reading everything you’ve written and has been thinking about you and what you’re up to, but now I’m realizing that I really just wanted to yell at you about all the shit you left fucked up for me to fix._

_But I guess I don’t have much else to say other than to blame you for everything wrong with my (your old) apartment. Um, so this is me just letting you know I’ve been reading. Real quick, though, I’ll answer some shit you’ve asked (rhetorically? Who cares) and whatever._

_1.) Geoff, please! What happens in the Fleetwood Mac Witch Cult is supposed to stay in the Fleetwood Mac Witch Cult! It’s the first rule! 2.) I’ve got no fucking clue how to pronounce Valparaiso. Google it. It takes two seconds. 3.) I know all about Tarantino’s foot fetish. It’s hard to ignore, believe me I’ve tried. 4.) Fargo was okay, I haven’t seen it since I was a kid. 5.) I don’t see the appeal in Ryan Phillippe, he looks too twunk-like (definitely a generator of power from the bottom) for me. Kurt Russell in Escape From New York however… 6.) That blueberries thing sucks ass. I’m lactose intolerant, if that makes you feel any better. We both have gross ass bodily reactions from food, so this can be a real bonding experience. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost shit my pants because I got extra cheese on my cheese pizza._

_P.S. Do you know you add a P.S. in almost every single postcard? It’s always been a pet peeve of mine in your cards. Like, Geoff, you don’t need to use a P.S. every time you send a card. I’m glad I can finally get this off my chest._

_-Michael_

•••

 **North Adams, MA**  
**December 16th, 2015**

_I can’t even argue with you about how hot Ryan Phillippe is because you just paraphrased an Always Sunny thing to me and I think I have to marry you now. And I’m going to go ahead and ask you to do your best Steve Urkel impression when you read this next part, because oops… did I do that? I think the lights have always been like that, but I allegedly might’ve been the one to put glue on the walls. The sink was an honest mistake, however. I dropped a bowling ball in the sink. Don’t ask, because I don’t have a good enough reason for why I was washing a bowling ball in the sink other than to admit that in my formative years I was a fucking stupid idiot. Geoff._

_P.S. What’s wrong with the amount of P.S.’s I use? You leave them out of this, this is just between you and me._

_P.P.S. I really didn’t think there was anyone else on the other end of these postcards. It’s sort of boggling to realize how much shit I’ve actually spilled over the past couple of months to you without even knowing you existed. That’s not to say that I regret any of it. You were there for me when I was have really shitty nights. So thanks for being with me, New Jersey. Or should I call you Michael now, buddy? I guess I’ll figure it out soon._

•••

It’s five days from Christmas and now that Michael has been living at the apartment complex for about a year, he feels like he can undoubtedly and assuredly say that Meg and Ryan are filthy cheaters who cheat and should never be allowed to play Scrabble ever again.

“Oh, come the fuck on! What the hell is an ‘antired’ even supposed to be?!” Michael throws up his hands and turns an accusing eye on Ryan who is smiling amicably as he evens out his Scrabble letters on the board.

Ryan shrugs, now laughing under his breath. “It’s an antiquark color.”

“A _what_?” Jack asks in suspicion at the same time that Meg high-fives Ryan and Michael groans.

“It’s all particle physics, Michael,” Ryan explains away breezily, as if Michael is supposed to know what the shit that means.

Michael barely even graduated high school and now Ryan’s talking from out of his ass about particle physics and obviously fake as hell words to him.

Michael points an accusatory finger at Ryan and Meg. “This is why I don’t play board games with college professors and history majors. This is bullshit. Gavin!” Michael shouts suddenly, turning to look at Gavin who is sitting beside him and is _supposed_ to be on his team, but all he’s added to the game is the four letter word ‘bead.’ “You’re supposed to be helping! I thought you were a science teacher?! You should have this in the bag!”

“Don’t yell at me!” Gavin shouts back, but he’s doing that almost giggling thing that he does when he finds something funny. In this instance he finds Michael’s anger funny. Michael is going to throttle him one of these days. “It’s not my bloody fault that all my letters are shite! This is a fixed game!”

“Guys, please,” Lindsay says placatingly from where she’s sitting next to Jack, who has definitely added more than a four letter word to _their_ team. She turns towards Michael and places a comforting hand on his shoulder, saying, “Don’t let Scrabble come between you and Gavin, Michael. What you have is special. Don’t let third place be the reason why you guys split.”

“Oh, fuck off.” He dismissively pushes her hand off his shoulder while rolling his eyes, not paying attention to the way Gavin says his name quietly as if he’s been wounded, hand to his chest. He’s laughing when he points to Ray, who is sitting back on the couch in Michael’s living room and playing on his DS quietly, just going about his game of Pokémon Black & White and keeping his hands clean of this messy Scrabble business. “You’re lucky you got out of this, Ray.”

“The odd numbers in our crew are the only true saviors in my eyes,” Ray tells him mildly, not even looking up from his game. “Like, sure Jesus died for our sins and shit but uneven numbers kept me from having to school the rest of basic bitches in Scrabble.”

Meg snorts raucously into Ryan’s shoulder and Lindsay leans over to pat her back while everyone laughs, Ray even giggling slightly at his own joke as he watches Michael shake his head.

“Did you just say ‘basic bitches,’ Ray?” Gavin asks in shock. Jack confirms that Ray did in fact just say that.

“Hey, man, when it’s my turn to pick the game again we’ll play Cards Against Humanity just for you. Or I could try to find a basketball board game for you since the only time you’re ever interested in anything we do as a group is when sports are involved.” Michael leans across their side of the table and pats Ray on the leg, though unless Margaret decides to play too it’d still be an uneven team. Maybe he could get away with kicking Ryan out of their next game night as payback for what he’s done to Michael’s competitive ego tonight during Scrabble.

Lindsay quietly whispers, “But only the inside sports.”

Michael can’t stop himself from snorting. A classic dig at Ray for never leaving the apartment? Hilarious.

“NBA 2k11,” Ray says automatically. “Let’s do it.”

“That’s not a board game, Ray.”

“Well you might as well break into my apartment and shit on my desk then, Michael, because you sure as hell aren’t stopping me from making that happen now. That’s my jam.”

“Please don’t do that,” Ryan wheedles softly. “I don’t want to have to clean that up.”

Gavin smiles and opens his mouth to say something, but Michael is already pushing himself up and walking into the kitchen, waving dismissively when he hears Gavin squabbling about him leaving him to play by himself.

Margaret is pulling out the heavy creamer when he passes through the doorway, her warm, dark skin lit up and turned gradual shades of blue by the glow of the refrigerator. Her hair is pulled back from her face and into a bun with a bright orange scrunchie, one she’s probably had since the scrunchie fad of the nineties, and he kisses her temple in passing when he comes closer.

“When do you think they’ll fuck off so I can have all this food to myself?”

Margaret slaps at his hand when he grabs a noodle from an already made batch of chicken alfredo, but he moves it away fast enough that she misses and he gets it into his mouth before it’s knocked to the floor.

“Ha! Sucker,” he says maturely while she huffs.

She’s in the middle of closing the door to the refrigerator when she asks, “Do you want to be the one making this?” with a mean squint and the answer to that is _definitely not_. Especially not when she crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows at him while waiting for an answer.

He shakes his head quickly, abruptly apologetic.

“No, ma’am.”

She nods, uncrossing her arms and going back to moving about the kitchen like she owns the place, taking things out of the cabinets that he didn’t even know he had. The last time she was over it’d just been the two of them watching a soap opera together while she borrowed his oven to make food for the soup kitchen she volunteers at a few blocks over; she must’ve brought all the new appliances he doesn’t recognize over back then.

“Don’t do that again or you’ll never see another buñuelo again.”

“Sorry, _mom_.”

Margaret laughs. “Baby, if I was your mama then you’d have better manners than you do and wouldn’t be stealing food from old ladies. You be grateful now.”

Michael is about to suck up to her and say that she doesn’t even look a day past twenty-six when he hears a knock on the door and shrugs at her instead, yelling out an obnoxiously loud, “I got it!” before anyone else gets the chance.

He heads around the corner of the kitchen and passes by the group. Gavin’s cackling like a happy little mad man as he lines up every single letter he had on the board, getting a triple bonus, and Meg groans and yells no while Lindsay claps (the wildcard of the group, no alliances with anyone or anything other than chaos). Ryan tells Lindsay she shouldn’t be clapping when her team was just put in dead last and Michael doesn’t get to hear whatever Lindsay retorts back with before he’s at the door, tittering under his breath at the roars coming from the group as it turns to Lindsay’s turn and she puts down what sounds like an even _longer_ word.

He pulls the door open, smile plastered on his face and making his cheeks hurt.

“Hell—” the greeting dies out before it even finishes rolling off his tongue.

His body freezes and, in that stolen moment of time where his heart shudders, time manages a hiccup and a stutter, seeming to collapse in on itself to allow Michael a small moment of reprieve from everything horrible in his life as his stomach swoops. It’s such a small, stolen moment of time that passes by, so easily missable, but it sets Michael’s heart off to the races, beating irregularly as his hands start to shake against the frame of the door and the doorknob.

All the air in the room has run out in a snap and his heart turns inside out, breath cloistered up in his lungs, his whole body going numb and tingly.

“Oh,” he finishes breathlessly, brain failing him now more than ever.

But his heart.

_Oh god, his heart._

His heart is singing, beating like it’s only been with him this long just so it could beat itself senseless in this exact moment, flourishing and bright and unforgiving.

Michael peels his shaking hand off of the doorknob and places it over his mouth like he’s trying to keep himself from letting his heart crawl its hopelessly honest way up his esophagus so it can fling itself down at the dirty, worn-out boots across the threshold of his door. His whole body goes weak and he has to will himself back from the unthinking self-humiliation that makes him want to reach out and claim what he sees before him like it’ll disappear in a puff of dreamy smoke if he doesn’t grab hold quick enough.

And with another thrum of his heartbeat it’s all laid out before him, everything real and hidden in him pushed out into the harsh light in an instant. Because there it is. There’s that thing he’s been after. What he’s been searching for his whole life. His thing. His one. His person.

Him.

•••

 **Ridgewood, NJ**  
**December 20th, 2015**

_Honey, I’m home. Geoff._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking literal years to post this chapter... time is an illusion and I have major depression so... yeah. But still... yikes. Feel free to yell at me on [Tumblr](http://teammuchrespect.tumblr.com/) (#promo #sponsored #ad) or in the comments if you need to due to the long break this fic took, because believe me... I know.
> 
> OH! And let me just give a shout out to [synthsym](http://archiveofourown.org/users/synthsym) for making [a map](https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zjVc1nicMVD8.kWk2W7SHIIcY&usp=sharing) out of the locations from the postcards, because yes I did see your note on the bookmark you made for this fic. Wicked cool, dude. Absolutely sick.


End file.
